Sestina Poem- A Glorious Massacre

I haven’t posted in some time- I’ve been in a flood of homework recently. I’m going to be having my term break soon, however, so I’ll finally get around to writing again soon. Anyway, just to have some new content here, I decided to post a poem I wrote for English class a few days ago. It’s a sestina (basically, a poem where you write the first stanza, look at the words you use to end each sentence in each stanza and then you have to keep using those words to end sentences in the next stanzas according to the sestina format). Alright- here we go:

A Glorious Massacre

The great roaring of the army cannon

A soldier waves the red army banner.

Crying people stream out of the city,

Only to be gunned down by the soldiers.

In the tent sits the army’s general,

Oblivious to the rising smell of death.


A halt would not be called, despite the deaths

Thunder still pouring out of the cannons.

Laughter fills the tent of the general,

As the troops lift the red army banner.

Lifted up, hailed by the common soldiers,

Marched right to the wrecked walls of the city.


Striding out the tent comes the general

Applauding the conquest of the city.

He sees the fluttering of the banners

and the ground littered with so many deaths.

He orders the halting of the cannon

Satisfied with the cold-blooded soldiers.


The glorious but grim march of the soldiers

Led in front by a triumphant general

Men haul back the murderous black cannons

As men crawl out of what was a city

Mourning and crying for the countless deaths

In the shade of the enemy banner.


The glorious symbol still stands, the banner.

Murderous grandeur, bloody for the soldiers

But triumphant all the same; ignore the deaths!

Fame for the troops, fame for the general

Just for the destruction of a city.

It had served its job, the cannon.


The general watches the banner proudly,

The soldiers now masters of a city

Just for a thousand deaths by the cannon.


Published by Ken Lohatepanont


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