Thanks for the read Bob. I really shall have to look at the last three lines
and allow them to focus the rest of the poem. I love to watch rooks in a
high wind and I am sure they will fly in it for the sheer pleasure they get
but I cannot be sure that they do get pleasure.....but why not. They appear
to mock we earthbounds but I don't know that they do. Their antics and
raucous cries do seem to mock though. Regards Arthur.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Bob Cooper" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, March 24, 2003 1:24 PM
Subject: Re: New sub: The Castle: The sestina
Hi Arthur,
This is a fine attempt at the toughest of forms! I admire the way you've
controlled the form and how it flows while maintaining the demands, the
bullying, of the often so boring biggy of poetry, the sestina!
Your use of the word "kite" intrigues me, delights me! I'm not too sure
about the line "deride the plod of gravity-lumbered folk." (perhaps because
I don't think that's actually what they're doing!). I like the way you use
your adjectives and adverbs, too.
You seem to be putting forward a narrative here as well. That visitors and
local people are all going up to the castle for some specific purpose on
some specific chilly March day... If such a reading is right it may add to
the poem, it may give it a title that draws attention away from the poem's
structure and helps it to present itself as a poem where those who're
remembered in the last 3 lines gain a significance alongside the birds and
people who've been mentioned in every stanza.
Bob
>Sestina
>
>The castle is not easily seen from these close streets.
>It's hidden by roofs, where dare-devil rooks
>flip and flaunt their skills on invisible bars of wind
>with grating calls. There are clues, a gale-wrung flag,
>peek-a-boo towers between chimneys, flow of folk,
>then suddenly it vaults skywards, buttressed by white rock.
>
>The motte is natural, grass and shrubs over white rock.
>The path clambers upwards from the quiet streets
>and on this windy Sunday in early March folk
>work their way up, under the circus of raucous rooks.
>Shapes of heads move on the tower under the flag
>that writhes and cracks under the whip of wind .
>
>Black-bladed wings fold and shape the wind
>and ride high over the castle and the white rock,
>kite and cruise consummately, mocking the flag
>that struggles to be free to fly over the narrow streets
>where wind-bent crick-necks watch the rooks
>deride the plod of gravity-lumbered folk.
>
>A chill, shaken afternoon in March when folk
>outface the pluck and buffet of a hooligan wind
>to watch the antic circuits of cavorting rooks
>through the meadows of air high over the white rock
>where the castle broods above the snug and tidied streets,
>time-defiant under the flow and wrap of flag.
>
>The path is steep, cobble-paved and spirits will flag,
>as visitors in coach and car, joined with the townsfolk,
>climb up the path and steps, up from the tight streets
>through the flush of crocuses quivering in the wind,
>up through the racked and bared ribs of rock
>up to the highest tower, above the trees and rooks.
>
>The wind rips tears from eyes that follow the rooks
>as they slice the sky with jack-knife wings, the flag
>clatters its rope against the trembling pole. Below, a skirt of rock
>scattered with shrub, isles of crocuses, hunched folk
>collar-raised, hat-clamped and scarved, that wind
>up from the smug town's prim and Sunday-silent streets.
>
>They leave their streets and climb to join the rooks
>that aerobat and ride the wind that rags the tattered flag;
>commemorate an earlier folk who sheltered in the shadow of this rock.
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