The Patients go Barefoot (Sestina)

Outcast

This is a poetic form I love reading so I decided to take a swing at writing one. It was tough. Here's what I wound up with:

On the far side of the moon there is an asylum
In the sea of absurdity and madness
There is a cacophony of lunatics
The craters and boulders echo
As insanity screams
The patients dance around barefoot.

Insanity is always barefoot
There are no shoes in the moon-rock asylum
Which results in occasional screams
When one of the lunatics
Gashes a bloody echo
Into a soft sole of madness.

The universe stretches out from the lunatics
They gaze wide-eyed and barefoot
Their banished calls echo
From the lonely asylum
Only the stars hear their madness
As eternity swallows their screams.

The lunar wilderness is full of screams
As they burn the throats of the lunatics
Burning with every possible kind of madness
Joy, misery, fury, all barefoot
Fly around the asylum
And ecstatically echo.

But Earth is deaf to the echo
It turns its back on the screams
Tries to forget the asylum
Hates the thought of the lunatics
Is ashamed to go barefoot
Yet somehow judges the madness?

There is liberty in madness
Songs of freedom echo
They dare to run barefoot
To release mind-racking screams
Let us bow to the lunatics
In their hallowed asylum.

Worlds twirl round the asylum, in a rhythmic madness
The lunatics dance and in space there’s an echo
Of euphoric screams, the patients go barefoot.

shiv

Hiya Outcast, I like what you wound up with. What do you mean by 'a poetic form' you love reading? Just curious.

The title's pretty cool. And the subject matter appeals to me.
Well done
Here's what moved me most:


There is a cacophony of lunatics

Insanity is always barefoot
There are no shoes in the moon-rock asylum

Only the stars hear their madness

Worlds twirl round the asylum, in a rhythmic madness
The lunatics dance and in space there’s an echo

Think you could lose the last line...

Peyton Manning

I think this was an excellent attempt at a sestina. Very well done!

Only one slight criticism though, my understanding of a Sestina is that it shouldnt be obvious that it is a Sestina if you didnt know that it was one. Some of the lines looked a tiny bit forced, and I know, how can you not force a Sestina? Few people can master the Sestina form (i.e. Elizabeth Bishop) but i would deffinately give this 8 marks out of 10. Well done.

Outcast

Thanks, I know some/a lot of it sounds forced but I wanted to try the form and I suppose my first attempt was never going to flow as well as I wanted it to. I'm happy-ish with it though.

It was Bishop's sestina that inspired it by the way!