Some Great City

This is a sestina I originally wrote to help someone cheat on their homework, then revised for my creative writing class. It's an interesting form to work with.

In the early morning of the city,
glass and steel are washed in pale blue light.
And from his feathered bed and silken sheets a man will rise,
as his warm and hopeful dreams into obscurity sink.
And in the cold, sterile mirror he will search
closely, for a near-forgotten, long-lost flame.

He recalled that in his youth, burned brightly, the flame,
and illuminated the world and his simple city.
For purpose or happiness he did not search,
for all was revealed by the innocence of childhood light.
Now he looked back, when he felt all the world into a hole could sink,
and knew that from those unexperienced depths he could rise.

And from boyhood and blocks, did man and tower rise,
fueled by industrious, tempering flame.
And from his desk and chair the ground did sink,
to reveal a complicated and plentiful city.
But although all his life was bathed in light,
outwardly, the darkness inside began to search.

In the shadow of his past he made his own search,
for what gave his old laughter rise,
and his then-smooth face that handsome light.
But he could not find his youthful flame.
It was lost through the glass of his blinding city.
And into himself he began to sink.

From his high and powerful seat he would also sink,
into streets and alleys and gutters to make his desperate search,
only to find a darker, unforgiving, and foreign city.
At every morning’s chime were fewer reasons to rise,
and every evening’s pass to dreams, an ever-waning flame.
Until finally came a failed attempt to blow away the light.

-

But when he awoke he found he did not need a shining light!
No further into fear and uncertainty he could sink!
He had felt the warmth and crippling burn of his soul’s flame
and though for truth and happiness he might still search
he knew there was nowhere further left to rise.
So he set out, for life! away from his old and tired city.

His light, any light, was not found, despite his search.
And after his mind’s troubled sink, his soul came to rise,
to be filled again with the beautiful flame that would shine in some great city.