Gedicht
Trevor Joyce
FROM A PHANTOM HYPERSESTINA
FROM A PHANTOM HYPERSESTINA
FROM A PHANTOM HYPERSESTINA
peacocksseem out
of place
and uneasy
here
large
rattling
tails
folded
eyes
all
neatly
stacked
like tenses
of some
complex
and irregular
verb tabled
in a grammar
could
should
would
or a hand
of cards
*
stone
human
sky
bedded
three-ply
colour
leaching
levels
down
air glows
diaphanous
sediments
obscure
as human
sentiment
grows
colourable
memory
is heavy
freight
sky
exalts
light
cold sumps
black out
the heart
is a chambered
habitat
*
uh oh
here they
come
they’ll hound
you and pound
you and hammer
you flatter than
pemmican
they’ll process
the meat
of your dreams
reconstitute
soul with
machines
and you’ll never
see anything
brighter than
coal
*
workers
abandoned
work
athletes
left off
striving
the great
relaxed
their tyranny
men of leisure
stopped their
idleness
through corridors
and halls
and offices
state
functionaries
were arrested
and heard
the concrete
roaring
like
accelerated
water
*
always
different
isn’t it?
even though
you sketch
the structure
beforehand
even after all
childhood
spent aloft
or dreaming
outbursts
of limbs
branching
surprises
and always
from the highest
twig
the redbreast
calls you
sweetly
up
© 2008, Trevor Joyce
From: What’s in Store
Publisher: New Writers’ Press and The Gig, Dublin and Ontario
From: What’s in Store
Publisher: New Writers’ Press and The Gig, Dublin and Ontario
These thirty-six word poems are all residues from an unfinished project which attempted to re-imagine the sestina form by taking to an extreme the twin constraints of condensation and repetition. In the event, the work splintered into many of these short poems in which, taken individually, repetition is at a minimum, and the only surviving vestige of the sestina is in the number 36, the total number of lines which constitute its six six-line stanzas.
Gedichten
Gedichten van Trevor Joyce
Close
FROM A PHANTOM HYPERSESTINA
peacocksseem out
of place
and uneasy
here
large
rattling
tails
folded
eyes
all
neatly
stacked
like tenses
of some
complex
and irregular
verb tabled
in a grammar
could
should
would
or a hand
of cards
*
stone
human
sky
bedded
three-ply
colour
leaching
levels
down
air glows
diaphanous
sediments
obscure
as human
sentiment
grows
colourable
memory
is heavy
freight
sky
exalts
light
cold sumps
black out
the heart
is a chambered
habitat
*
uh oh
here they
come
they’ll hound
you and pound
you and hammer
you flatter than
pemmican
they’ll process
the meat
of your dreams
reconstitute
soul with
machines
and you’ll never
see anything
brighter than
coal
*
workers
abandoned
work
athletes
left off
striving
the great
relaxed
their tyranny
men of leisure
stopped their
idleness
through corridors
and halls
and offices
state
functionaries
were arrested
and heard
the concrete
roaring
like
accelerated
water
*
always
different
isn’t it?
even though
you sketch
the structure
beforehand
even after all
childhood
spent aloft
or dreaming
outbursts
of limbs
branching
surprises
and always
from the highest
twig
the redbreast
calls you
sweetly
up
From: What’s in Store
These thirty-six word poems are all residues from an unfinished project which attempted to re-imagine the sestina form by taking to an extreme the twin constraints of condensation and repetition. In the event, the work splintered into many of these short poems in which, taken individually, repetition is at a minimum, and the only surviving vestige of the sestina is in the number 36, the total number of lines which constitute its six six-line stanzas.
FROM A PHANTOM HYPERSESTINA
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