The Matador

One of my assignments from a few weeks ago. Sestina.
Wikipedia says:

A sestina (also, sextina, sestine, or sextain) is a highly structured poem consisting of six six-line stanzas followed by a tercet (called its envoy or tornada), for a total of thirty-nine lines. The same set of six words ends the lines of each of the six-line stanzas, but in a different order each time; if we number the first stanza's lines 123456, then the words ending the second stanza's lines appear in the order 615243, then 364125, then 532614, then 451362, and finally 246531.

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Dust rises high and fills the air
The sun, burns bright with hot despair
His cloak thrown loose across his back
Crimson red and velvet black
The voice of crowd begins to sound
Matador, stands on the ground

A beast of Earth, does not despair
El Toro, paws in angry air
Bull stomps outraged on the ground
His snort portent, a subtle sound
The scars of battle on his back
Crimson red and velvet black

Man breathes deep of dusty air
Arrogance dominates despair
The dance begins, no looking back
Crimson red and velvet black
Thundering hooves, a lonely sound
Bull plunges forward, splitting ground

Man rips the cloak, round from his back
Crimson red and velvet black
Disregarding all despair
Cloak and horns slice through the air
Matador, firm on the ground
The roar, “OLE!” the only sound

El Toro charges, steady back
Crimson red and velvet black
Horn meets flesh with no despair
Matador thrown in the air
The crowd falls noiseless, leaves no sound
Blood meets earth upon the ground

The still of silence fills the air
Blood and sand. Sweat, despair
Man lay crumpled on the ground
El Toro’s snort, the only sound
Blood seeps through dust, against man’s back
Crimson red and velvet black

Blood and sand, sweet despair, dust floats tender in the air
Crimson red and velvet black, face to heaven, earth to back
Humility spilled upon the ground, death comes for him, without a sound

Brave New Girl

For this assignment we had to write about someone that uses public space as private space. I figured everyone else would write about homeless people so I wanted to do something a little more outside of the box. I'm definately not the kind of blogger that I'm writing about below, but I do think it's a modern example of someone using private space as public space.
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I don’t speak loudly on my cell phone when I’m standing in line at Starbucks. I don’t put on makeup in my car. I don’t breastfeed without cover in the mall, or urinate in public places. I don’t make out in hot, crowded bars or stand too close to people when I’m talking to them. I’ve never shaved my legs in an airport bathroom or been naked in public. I’m braver than that. I write. I am a blogger.

I share something that’s much more personal than my conversations, my body or my rituals of hygiene. I fill the internet with the details of my convictions, my heart and my soul. I reveal details of the dreams fragmented by anxiety, the throb and glitter of looming hope. Images captured through my camera lens are hurled into cyberspace broadcasting moments once held sacred, to the world.

I channel my emotions onto the electronic page. I click. I share. I upload the secrets from my soul in bits and bytes. I sit braless, in striped pajamas, safely hidden behind the firewall that makes me brave in this new world. I let the words tumble from my beating heart through the rhapsody of wi-fi. Gone is the diary with the rainbow cover; it’s tiny lock protecting surreptitious thoughts. Gone are the letters creased and wrinkled from memorization, hidden underneath my mattress. My habitual secrecy ensnared, by the lure of an age of information.