Contemplations in the form of a sestina

Sooo I'll admit it I'm kinda on a poetry kick right now so I'm going to share something else I wrote for this weeks writing class. We are writing sestinas. For those of you unfamiliar with the form it is usually seven stanzas of which the first six are six lines long and the last is three lines long. In the first six stanzas there are only six words used to end each line. In other words you repeat the same six words, in a different order each stanza, as the end of each line of poetry. The last stanza uses two of the six words in each line.

To preface you reading this poem I just want to say that I am sharing it because I wrote it when I was thinking about finding answers. Annie Dillard's quote "Given things as they are how shall one individual live?" has been stuck in my head since the moment I read it. I think my poem speaks to the confusion in lacking an answer for this question. Just a warning though, one of the end words is fuck so  if that is going to bother you I suggest you stop reading now.

Contemplations 

I sit alone and wonder  

about how we live life. 

Does it have any purpose- 

struggling through the daily grind? 

Sometimes I want to say “Fuck 

it!” and succumb to madness. 

If we let the madness 

in would others wonder 

about us? Call us fucking 

idiots who waste our lives? 

Would they watch us grind 

to beats? If the purpose 

of existence is to find the purpose 

how do we not go insane? The madness 

creeps in like a glacier and grinds 

out the mind’s landscape leaving us wondering 

why… Each man lives his life 

day by day: eating, sleeping, fucking, 

and repeating. No one knows why the fuck 

we do. We may search for a purpose 

but discover only this: that life 

is but a slow decent to madness. 

It is humanities greatest wonder 

that our minds survive the daily grind. 

If we spend the days grinding 

out work that we fucking  

hate how can we wonder 

why we are unhappy? We lack true purpose, 

chasing satisfaction and flirting with madness. 

If only we could live our lives 

as if there was more to life 

than work- more than the grind. 

Maybe what society sees as madness 

is but the contemplations of those who fuckin 

care. Maybe our true purpose 

is just to let ourselves wonder… 

Life should be more than the mind-fuck 

of the daily grind. The purpose should be 

to find the fine line between madness and wonder. 

~Carol Clonan