revision of sestina for my deceased sister

[machinery]

Surrounded by shadowed structures and weak wattage, bodies
consumed the church's void. The congregation of beating hearts
featured pale winter faces. Sockets seeped syntaxes of sorrow
on winded-red cheeks and arched mouths mourned in gestures. Lips
quivered, bent and bitten and exhaled manifestations of distraught distaste
and inhaled breakdowns of control and tasted slipped salted tears.

The sacristy was in hues of lit red candle scones, the flames formed in tears,
and still green stems and pin-thin petal, which encompassed the coffined body.
About the communion rail sat small arrangements of pure white and tasteful
red. A tarnished metal form upon a crucifix, Jesus hung above the hearts,
all beating except one. The lectern spoke slowly through pouted lips;
the words bounced off the sanctuary walls with such echoing sorrow.

An unorthodox coffin of ornate oak rested in front of the archaic altar as sorry
faces stared at its closed-lid obscurity. My sister's seventeen years were tears
on family members' faces-her name spoken in past tense through scrupled lips.
I stared at the inept movement of little flames that lit up the sacristy, the flames' bodies
moved tepidly, which was in accordance with the congregation of hearts;
their sits and stands and kneels and entwined hands of prayer were anything but tasteful.

Relatives were cramped one shaking shoulder to another, dressed in distasteful
soot-black suits and gloomy dresses; their pathetic postures, slouched all sorrowful,
with crumpled tissues in clutched hands, leaked limpid letdowns of their beating hearts
because of a sudden shutdown of my sister's through trickled tears
which gleamed against cherry cheeks like angels' halos as their bodies
sat in old-fashioned wooden pews that shined like fresh-kissed lips.

And I, in between my melted-faced mother and Red Sea-eyed father, bit at my lips
and penitently pinched at my ironed pants. I couldn't rid the dry distastefulness
from my mouth. My eyes swarmed like bees around the church, eyeing everybody.
Everyone's eyes were flooded rivers except mine; I, too, wanted sorrow.
I wanted to feel for my deceased sister, to expose my emotions and erupt in tears.
But my befuddled brain was in denial (no, not my sister!) as was my shaken heart.

Surrounded by sad sobs and occasional outcries, my beating heart
was unstable. I stared upwards at the crucifix. His head was south; his lips
paper thin and arched in pain. Oh, the number of trickled tears
his eyes must have cried! His life was a sacrifice for ours, a distasteful
display, him nailed to the cross, his family and friends on their knees in sorrow.
Everyone dies in the end. Some for reasons easily defined, but not everybody.


My seventeen year-old sibling's heart was too great to falter, her lips
too sweet to not speak anymore. Nobody will rid me of this sorrow;
my tear ducts will keep her loss in question until tomorrow I can't taste.

<font color="#a62a2a"><font size="1">[ December 06, 2004 01:16 AM: Message edited by: machinery ]</font></font>

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ December 06, 2004 01:17 AM: Message edited by: machinery ]</font>

[machinery]

yeah...just finished this tonight at work. anyway, has to be turned in tomorrow...so i was just wondering if any of you could give me some responses...

if its better, and why
if its not, and why

and you know, whatever else..

keep moving the pen,

rp

[sarafina mable]

i can't remember exactly what the first version was like, but this is really good. the detail is amazing and the language is so thorough and particular, to a T.
what i noticed was the strength and variety in language and word usage in the first couple stanzas and then what seemed like a gradual decent in the last few stanzas. this was striking to me because of the repetitive use of "distaste" or "distatefullness" etc. seemed like you might have run out of fuel or something towards the end. i need to read it again and then i will try to help you out some more.

[machinery]

that was a sestina is. notice the last word of each line in each stanza...its the same six words

you have to use them in different arrangment each stanza...then use all six in the last three lines....

http://www.hostboard.com/cgi-bin/ult...ic/f/461/t/964

the link is my first draft....big change..hahahah...i got a terrible grade on it

[sarafina mable]

now i'm realizing that you used the word tasteful or distasteful in every stanza and this might have been part of your intention. i also didn't know what the parameters of a sestina are and now it makes a little more sense to me. there is a cause for the madness! although i am still kind of confused about what a sestina really is and is that what this is exactly or are you altering it in some way?
you didn't really leave much out in this except for yourself. this probably has more to do with what i want than what you need, but after setting all those details in my mind i am left wondering about the details of your grief and the dealings that surround that; sitting in between your 'melted-faced mother and red-sea eyed father' makes me crave a focus on those very interpersonal relationships. especially when you reveal your inability to really grasp the reality. i guess what i'm trying to say is that i not only want to see what you saw on the outside, but i want to understand what it looked like inside of you.
also, maybe you could post the original version of this so i could have a better base to compare.

[sarafina mable]

i just posted this before i read your reply to my first post, sorry if my last post seems redundant

[sarafina mable]

i just read the original version and there is no comparison really, the revision is unbelievably superior. it has a much sharper focus on detail, in the original you seemed to try and cover too much ground and in that you failed to capture the reader the way you did in the revision. how long ago did you write the original?