Sestina-ween: The Survivors

Many thanks to the participants of my sestina-ween contest, which challenged those few brave souls to face against the horror of the sestina! I received more than 35 entries and had to whittle it down to these few survivors:

Honorable Mentions:

Persephone-9 - Eyelids on fire



Shards-of-Shame - Old butler Jaggins



Third Place:

GaioumonBatou - The Rope

The RopeAnd there it stands, a single metal corpse
upon a ruddy hillside, painted scarlet
from the sunset hanging low beside the house.
That single metal piece alone the ghoul
looks over, taunting those who pass the tree,
as though awakened from a partial sleep.
And when within that state of almost sleep
there is a chance to look upon the corpse,
step softly in the grounds. Around the tree
there is a rope whose knots are tinted scarlet
by the sunset--though some blame the ghoul:
the sunset is deflected by the house.
And as the sun should sink behind the house
a person can sneak in and watch him sleep,
and sleep he does, that effervescent ghoul.
He wakes and rises only for the corpse,
or else to mark that curséd rope dark scarlet
while waiting on the metal by the tree.
And if he keeps his watch next to the tree
a person might feel safest in the house,
for blood is all that turns ropes that dark scarlet.
The rope does not change color when he sleeps,
it stays the same when he watches the co

Prizes won:
3 month subscription
Lanyard

Second Place:

timeraider - All Hallows Eve

All Hallows' EveShe leaps and whirls to a ritual beat,
Bare feet kicking loose the earth;
None of us, idle by, know her name,
Or why, on Halloween, she comes -
Each year, the same slow night
Each year, her same swift sway.
No vaulted stars illuminate her way,
Lulled or snake-charmed by the beat
Resounding in this deep-well night;
Perhaps they, like us, crashed to earth,
To this place where dream-touched come,
To this place which has no name.
She mouths and mimes the names
Of the countless many who lost their way;
Those who would not, could not come
And herald thunder's echoing drum-beat:
Her hard footfalls on the loam and earth,
Her hard footfalls in the night.
Others curse and rail against the night,
Fearing demons they dare not name,
We feel them, restless, beneath the earth,
And stirred this night, always;
Awakened by the lady's pulse-warm beat,
Awakened by the night, they come.
Our fears, now shaped, are swift to come,
Rising with the tide of slow-fall night -
From chambers low and deep, an ascend

Prizes won:
6 month subscription
devWEAR t-shirt

First Place:

Leurindal - I'll meet her again, this Samhain

I'll meet her again...It’s Samhain. The line between the spirit
world and our own is a ray of moonlight.  
It’s the night when the reluctant soul sticks
to our plane, hovering - a withered rose
whose beauty is the figment of a dream;
a gleam gilding the surface of the lake.
For long hours of idyll would the Lake
poets revel in letting their spirit
soar free on the nightingale’s wings, and dream  
of glimpsing their Muse clad in pure moonlight –
but tonight magic’s afoot: clouds just rose
to blur the moon like fumes from incense sticks.
The Romantics’ habit of rambling sticks
to mind tonight, as I stroll to the lake
and sit down to recall the violent rows
we’d have every night, before her spirit
gave itself over to the bland moonlight
and chose to rest and die, not live and dream.
But perhaps ‘tis I that’s strayed in a dream?
For in that small nest, fashioned out of sticks,
I see her visage, painted in moonlight.
I glimpse a lady traversing the

Prizes won:
1 year subscription
Fella plushie


Until next time, keep writing... and surviving.