My take on a sestina.
Silky threads and quilted dreams run wild through the streets,
We never learned enough to keep the wilted growing weak.
When I could see, I lived in gossamer seeds
That grew and grew until we reached out to our catastrophe.
Now that faded memory is glowing in the dark,
Coming back to swirl amongst the nightingales and larks.
When I was young I used to love to dance and swirl in the squiggles
Of leftover butterfly trails only seen in dreams of blurry visions.
I could never reach the memory of pretty faces dipped in lace
Or understand why they wilted into grey whenever I drew close.
Just another life catastrophe I suppose,
Better to deal with gossamer gold curls than brown drowning kinks.
Gossamer strings and patched nightmares flee stormy through the roads,
I can’t escape the swirl of oceans across my idle toes.
Frozen rain burns out the catastrophe that was him on me,
Leaving only dreams behind, flashes of rainbow ecstasies,
Ecstasies that wilted in the sun – empty shining halos
Leaking back into the memory, soothing the aches and pains of yesterday.
Before I speak a memory, I always prepare a drink,
Watch the liquid mix into gossamer coils of grenadine and liquor,
My grown-up Shirley Temple, before the brain cells wilted,
A quiet version of youth mixed up in a swirl of black and blue model flowers.
No dreams to catch, only awakenings, significant and loud,
A catastrophe I used to be able to handle.
But this catastrophe is different.
I can’t feel myself anymore, not with my memory always slipping.
Maybe they were dreams, maybe lapsing moments.
Either way, the gossamer buds of life are losing their gloss.
Now they swirl with fear, blacking out the petals
That used to shine so bright but now are only wilted.
White wilted hopes slow my step,
Bringing catastrophe closer and closer,
I swirl back to you, only for a second, see your fingers bring back imaginary rape,
Burning into memory, burning out of me, burning up the tears
That still refuse to fall into gossamer puddles of distant years.
My dreams have broken down – clink clink clink – in a whimper – hush now.
When I was young I used to swirl wilted hope away
But now my dreams can only stay within catastrophe.
My memory grasps hold of gossamer threads that – maybe – never were.
violetsams 