Three Things

First:

Because I forgot to mention it when I actually posted it, the "Fourth Century" of Calling You is now available for immediate perusal.

Second, this upcoming Thursday will mark the first anniversary of the day I finally noticed that most of the Pony stories I was reading were living at this place called FiMFiction.net and decided I should probably get an account there so I could have all my Pony stories in one easy-to-find location. And I've enjoyed every minute of my time here since.

And third would be this damned sestina.

I blame Aquillo for it. Formerly one of the gurus over at SALT and now doing his reviewing thing here on FimFiction at WRITE, he last week posted a fine little story called "Princess Luna Guards a Field" which I very much recommend to folks' attention. But then he added a second section wherein he retold the whole thing in rhyme.

Now, I enjoy writing poetry much more than I enjoy reading it--since the middle of March, for instance, I've been churning out a sonnet or something like it every week over in my Terebinth comic. But Aquillo's piece has some very nice touches--I especially like the way the whole "wheat, rye or oats" refrain gets varied throughout--and my brain, as my brain often annoyingly does, started making connections.

Because FiM has six main characters, right? And each of them has a special word associated with her due to her particular Element of Harmony. And when you've got six words, you've got the skeleton of a sestina, don't you?

Of course, the sestina is my absolute least favorite form of formal poem largely because it has neither rhyme nor rhythm. Whatever meter you wanna write a sestina in--iambic pentameter, something anapestic, a form of the hendecasyllable--sure, heck, go right ahead! And instead of rhyme, it uses this weird swirling pattern of the words that end the six lines of the first stanza, each word then repeating at the end of a different, pre-determined line in the subsequent stanzas. It's more like a college drinking game than anything else, the "beer pong" of poetry!

And yet, as I mentioned, I have this brain. And once it latches onto an idea, it tends to become stupidly obsessed. I mean, the rhythm of the six words themselves started poking at me, made me think they'd go well with a dactylic tetrameter, and when I decided to use "friendship" as one of the six words instead of "magic"--the transitive principle states that if a=b, then b=a; so if "friendship is magic," then "magic is friendship"--because that word better fit the theme I was developing, I abandoned all pretense and set to work writing the damn thing.

So here it is for better or for worse. And here's hoping I can stop thinking about it now and get back to the next chapter of "Calling You."

Ponyville
Ponyville glimmers, a beacon of kindness,
Sweetness an ocean whose pure generosity
Laps at the citizens' doorsteps in friendship.
Windjammer sharp spread her sails of loyalty,
Open to breezes ashimmer with laughter,
Gliding to dock using ropes spun from honesty.

Ponyville glitters, and yet in all honesty,
Something about her seems lacking in kindness.
Often her dusty suspicions choke laughter,
Make her go squinty-eyed, false generosity
Offering smiles that seem to lack loyalty.
Who here could not use some lessons in friendship?

Ponyville loves all her neighbors, but friendship?
Zebras and griffons and dragons? Her honesty
Forces a wry little chuckle while loyalty
Squirms in discomfort and calls out for kindness:
"Sure, they're not ponies, but show generosity!
Buy them a drink without rancor or laughter!"

Ponyville staggers amid drunken laughter,
Shouts up and down about undying friendship,
Pirouettes grandly and spurts generosity.
Face-down come morning, the cold light of honesty
Blurs the whole evening, an uncertain kindness,
Memory turning away out of loyalty.

Ponyville ponders, decides this is loyalty:
Filling an icepack with chuckles, not laughter.
Comrades now, bonded in hungover kindness,
Coffee so perfect, it's better than friendship,
Quietly sharing a moment of honesty.
Unspoken lessons create generosity.

Ponyville basks in the sun's generosity,
Passes out ice tea and sunscreen, her loyalty
Not just to ponies: to all who in honesty
Sang with her last night and danced to her laughter.
Warm and contented, she knows what makes friendship:
Ugliness transformed by mutual kindness

True generosity tempered with laughter,
Ponyville's loyalty tells her in friendship:
That's the way honesty kills 'em with kindness.

Mike

Comments

[horizon]

Stumbled across this following old links. You rose to the challenge quite admirably.

It's a shame, as always, that poetry is so underappreciated around these parts. Have you considered reposting this to the poetry group? You can't add blog posts the same way you can stories, but maybe we can make a forum thread for sharing short poems that have noplace else to go.

[AugieDog]

1282736

I think I put that link:

To this page in the Poetry Group forum because I couldn't figure out what else to do with it. I really need to carve out some time and poke around the various groups here at FiMFiction!

Mike