[stylist] Sestina - "Richard III Professes Genetics"

[William L Houts]

HI Bridgit,

Thanks for your comments.  I'm glad you enjoyed the poem, and that you 
are so gracious in general.



--Bill










On 4/15/2014 9:10 PM, Bridgit Pollpeter wrote:
> I like how you insert history into your poetry, often juxtaposing with
> contemporary ideas or science or technology. I think you mix it well
> here.
>
> Side note, for a class I took a few years ago, we read a mystery of
> sorts involving Richard III. A modern detective tries to solve the
> mystery of if Richard actually murdered his nephews or not. Obviously
> his only evidence is what documentation and info survives today. I can't
> remember the name of the book or the author, I'll have to look it up,
> but it was fascinating.
>
> Bridgit
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of William L
> Houts
> Sent: Tuesday, April 15, 2014 2:23 PM
> To: Writer's Division Mailing List
> Subject: [stylist] Sestina - "Richard III Professes Genetics"
>
>
>
>
>
> Hi Pepples,
>
> Here's a poem I wrote about fifteen years ago.  It's a sestina, which
> are notoriously difficult to get right, even surpassing sonnets.  The
> reason is that the form first appeared in southern France during the
> 12th century, when they were used in duels between rival troubadours.
> So the form has legs, has we put it nowadays. The focus of this poem is
> Richard III, the English king who murdered his nephews in the Tower of
> London.
>
> OH yes, and here's a little info on sestinas.  They feature six stanzas,
>
> each line ending in one of six words.  The first stanza would have the
> form ABCDEF, the next stanza with the same end words but in a different
> order.  The final stanza is called an envoi, and ends with three lines,
> each line containing two of the featured end words.  It's devilishly
> hard to finish even a bad sestina; especially in English.  Anyway,
> here's mine.
>
>
> ---
>
>
>
>
> Richard III Professes Genetics
>
>
> I come before you now, the very root and chromosome
>
> of sin immured in public flesh.Our sleek and horselike
>
> State awakens from its dream of law to fevered choking;
>
> and I, the phlegm that issues out in lieu of prayer appealing
>
> reason, God or hell, proclaim an order roisterous
>
> and small:the rule of DNA, that mighty lord and curly.
>
> Who made the foot malformed?The hair upon it curly,
>
> stiff or straight?That silent king the chromosome
>
> commands it all.And if the blood is roisterous
>
> or chastened as a saint; the face, of horselike
>
> plainness, or made so maid or boy might say:appealing!
>
> --it's all the law of tiny inner seeds.I'm choking
>
> on the truth of it; but now you'll find me choking
>
> back a bastard glee.I've got you by the curly
>
> hairs, my better favored coz.I'm not appealing,
>
> no, nor never was, the subject of my lord the chromosome
>
> in wrath.Don't quarrel now, y those boys your eye has always found
> appealing
>
> fall to you by force.The righteous mob is roisterous,
>
> but swiftly tamed, for who can charge a spoiled moral chromosome?
>
> Or if you find your loving fingers slowly choking
>
> nephew throats--be free of shame!You serve a lord morecurly
>
> quaint and ancient thanthe serpent in the tree:of horselike
>
> common sense and twice the wile.For double helix, horselike,
>
> graceful, races through your deepest streams, appealing
>
> to the Ithat eats and sleeps and screws, and courts the curly
>
> head of faith to smash it in.Your ruddy roisterous
>
> flesh is wise to turn away from pale heaven's choking
>
> news.The self is home.Salvation's in the chromosome.
>
> Therefore, cousin, claim the credo Chromosome, so appealing
>
> in it's sleek and horselike honesty, and see your roisterous
>
> nephews choking...their holy mouths an O...their lashes curly.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> WLH
>
>
>
>
>
>
>


-- 
"Let's drink a toast now to who we really are."

           --Jane Siberry