Sestina

Here's another intricate poetic form. This time it ends up being a rather large poem. Hope you enjoy this sestina.

The View, The Option

All that is, that has crafted out of empty nothing every soul
knows too well the state in which we are, with guilty stain.
In this space the darkness sheds from light a silhouette
and from that shape a shadow cast upon the tortured slaves
those who toil day and night with no rest or peace or silence
For such the light clothed in flesh and blood became savior

In our delusion we were all convinced we needed no savior
but in the depths of our frame lay a fractured, needy soul
we laughed in our folly, it cried in its own secret silence
in its eyes took root a dark shape, an unwieldy, deathly stain
and given the choice, we put on shackles and chose to be slaves
but the truth hit us like a midday sun, all that is left a silhouette

Once that bomb fell, all that was left on the walls were silhouettes
they had nothing but the future in their hands, they knew no savior
they were the children of the children of the children of the slaves
when the dust settled, all that was left, were ambulating souls
all you could see was ash, dust, debris, and the sporadic stain
and if you had ears to hear, all that filled the air was silence

We all watched the TV. We watched it in disbelief and silence
The towering pillars of steel and commerce in grainy silhouettes
in surprise we couldn't save the jumpers, now on asphalt: stains
perhaps some, feeling the grip of death stayed, waiting for a savior
but was the price they paid a heavy expense? Perhaps, their soul.
Of the news, of the phone, of all we could learn we were slaves

Days after becoming sixteen, in such youth already a slave
and who could know a secret so well kept behind a lock of silence
He paid every day, he paid in dollars and cents, in life and soul
under street lamps, the shape of men, paper and bag silhouettes
he shot up but couldn't pay up so he was shot up with no savior
his mother runs to the street to her baby, on her dress blood-stains

Nobody wears such old clothes, splattered of gross, smelly stains
but she does. They call her a walker in the night and she too is a slave
he gave her a place to lay her weary body; he calls himself her savior
he hits her and uses her and she is left, a crying pile of bones, in silence
she came to know no other way but being a screaming silhouette
she thinks to herself she is pathetic and broken, and has lost her soul

The answer is true for every soul, even though we are full of stains
our shadows projected like silhouettes, bound to a wall as slaves
we need not suffer in this silence. There is one who knows us: a savior

© 2009 Emilio Gándara