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Outpost

This is a lonely and time-haunted spot,
Shadowed through half the day by mountain tops,
Where seldom traveller would choose to stop,
Save the bold scholar, whose devotion opts
To dig those shards of stone and shattered pots
Where once a vanished legion had its post.

Does some lost NUMEN  haunt it still? Far post-
Classical is our age. Can our wits spot
Kinship with those whose wine once filled these pots.
Who cursed the ever-shading mountain tops,
Or officer whose heartless order opts
That some small pleasure – dice, maybe – should stop?

This is the line where Caesar’s writ must stop,
And where  LATINITAS  has  LIMES -post,
Where –  CAVE MILES! – the barbarian opts
Rebellion… See, sentries alert to spot
Such boldness, perched on trestled watch-tower tops
(Gauls whose camp-Latin calls their heads their “pots”!)

Afar, they spy a hunter whose spear pots
A hare… Along the track with many a stop
Pass giggling groups of native girls – the tops
Of their reed baskets show wild fruits. There, post-
Haste rides a courier in from Rome (blest spot!)
Bearing the new commands some general opts.

Yonder, a cohort on patrol co-opts
A tramping peddler. “Bring your pins and pots,
Quack remedies and junk, man! This grim spot
Will prove for you a profitable stop.
Little to spend our pay on! This damned post
For boredom the grey fields of Hades tops!”

And there, beneath crude columns (whose rough tops
Echo at far remove what sculptor opts
In Rome) a bored tribune unrolls his post,
Calls for a scribe to bring his pens and pots
And, slow-dictating (three words, pause and stop),
Reports back from  imperium's  furthest spot…

So, in this spot, imagination opts
From broken column tops and shattered pots
To bid time stop and dream a Roman post.

Author notes

I apologize for the explanations - but I know that many Allpoetry members do not have much Latin.


This is a Newman sestina - i.e it follows the traditional form of a Sestina, with the additional refinement that the six rotating keywords are all anagrams of each other.

The words in capitals (should be italic, but such refinements are reserved for gold members!) are, of course, Latin, and should be pronounced as such. In particular, "limes" (boundary), "cave" (beware) and "miles" (soldier) are all disyllabic.
NUMEN is the noun from which English "numinous" is derived, LATINITAS is "Latinity" - i.e. Roman civilization.

Line 18 - i.e. the last line of stanza 3 - refers to the fact that the French for head
tęte -
is derived not from the classical Latin for head - " caput " - but from its late-Latin colloquial replacement by " testa " - pot. (And I am sure most Allpoetry members will know that Gaul was what is now France and Belgium).

The occasional use of a Latin (rather than English) word-order is deliberately crafted to enhance the "Roman" atmosphere of the poem.

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Comments

1 - 12 of 12

  • crivanea silver member
    September 19

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    dang...i'm impressed what a form!! at first i was thinking sestina..but then i realize it wasn't...i love the explanation..so don't apologize for it ..beautiful piece here poet well done


  • TyrannyForestFairy
    August 12, 2008

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    Wow! This was certainly unique as I don't think I have ever read a composition in this particular form before. Engaging piece with repetition and use of the same vowels throughout each stanza. Significant write, good work. Good luck in my contest and thanks for entering.

    ~Emily~ xx


  • Swan song gold member
    December 20, 2007
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    This is one awesome Sestina with rhythm rhyme and some excellent history. Wow this was good!

  • ea silver member
    December 14, 2007
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    This is quite entertaining and fun to contemplate.


  • ca ne fait rien
    December 5, 2007
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    Impressive.

  • Bad Bill
    December 5, 2007

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    An excellent poem written in what certainly looks a difficult form--very well done indeed.

    Bill


  • Ontarah
    February 16, 2007

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    An engaging and well written write. Full of action and good imagery. I also commend your laudable use of Latin to make the poem have a more authentic and unique flavor.


  • cvillelisa
    May 19, 2006
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    I commend you! I have about 1000 Sestina's hidden in files never to see the light of day. I was just chatting with Mr. Gin about a person I knew who used to post here who doesn't anymore who wrote a brilliant sestina using anagrams. He linked me. The person I am speaking of - well his work was so sneaky it was not obvious at first it even was anagrams. I wish it was here to share. But it is not.

    Anyway, well done!

    Lisa

  • Vera Rich
    February 7, 2006
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    I am so glad that you like this... A friend of mine - Elizabeth Kay (the same who is author of the "Divide" trilogy of teen-age fantasy novels (check out her website!)has taken the Newman sestina a stage further... she produced one using the key-words plates, palest, petals, pastel, pleats, staple - with the additional refinement that each stanza was an acrostic of one of the keywords, while the final triplet was an acrostic of "end".

    (By the way, Bob Newman who invented the Newman sestina is the person from whom I learned of the existence of Allpoetry - under his other identity of "Noggs" he runs a website which is a directory of poetic forms which Samplette had cited for one of her competitions. He, Liz Kay and another of our MANIFOLD poets, Paul Roche, several years ago independently and simultaneously invented the verse-form which we named "Nekaro" in their honour. )


    My own feeling in writing strict form poems is that the very demands of that form help the storyline/theme of the poem to develop. When I began writing OUTPOST I had little idea how it would end... Having set the keywords in the first stanza, I then let their permutations take me wherever they would...


  • Lyndon gold member
    February 7, 2006
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    Funloving excellence

    I thought I hads been sestinad into Asterix's Gaul. The allusions are fun and certainly give flavour of an extension of Empire! You maintain an anagrammatically disciplined sestina where the envoi triplet uses the personification of imagination for a neat rounding of the poem. I have known the anagrams post, opts, spot and stop for a lifetime. Now I know how such knowledge could have been put to use! Camp Latin reminds one of how English has become so eclectic, approaching 1 million words. You have given away the secret about going "potty" - not quite! As to things numinous, your final line haunts the Roman world, godlike, and we would inhabit it from your clever but exact poem. Lyndon. (Trust a Winkler to excel.)


  • Bazza
    February 6, 2006
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    Well done and imaginately written.

    What an incredibly complex and well planned piece of work. I am not qualified to comment but I appreciate the eork and talent that has gone into it and will need to read it many more times to dogest the full ramifications of a work or true art.


  • myron silver member
    February 4, 2006
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    disciplined

    hi vera i enjoyed reading this sestina with its brave monorhyme. well done, my friend.

    have you written villanelles as well? i tried writing some a few years ago but wasn't very successful at them.

    best wishes,
    myron.

1 - 12 of 12