Ekstasis MagazineComment

Sestina Sanctify

Ekstasis MagazineComment
Sestina Sanctify

Sestina Sanctify

Colin Sandberg

“... he must seek life like water
and yet drink death like wine”
–GK Chesteron,”Orthodoxy”

So here it is, the unfolding of sestenic desire:
brooding over this quote about the courageous life
with this idea from Chesterton saying life is water,
which I know I’m still being taught how to wisely drink
while climbing with my jagged nails – escaping death
and then happily dehydrate with IPAs and wine.

It’s like coming into a gas station for boxed wine
Where my palate slowly reveals its desires.
So I grab some Sour Patch Kids, Liquid Death,
and I wish could justify the box of Life
Cereal, but for $5.99? I leave with my drinks
And snap open that edge-lord fizzy water.

How was Williams not redundant when he said rain-water?
Let me try, let’s say grape-wine;
Then let’s say liquid-drink;
How about longing-desire,
Or breath-life —
Lifeless-death?

I’ve got a thirst for the near-death
But my beard drips with everyday water.
There’s still a little doggedness for my life
Embedded under my name, it intertwines,
Contesting against my deficient desires.
So deeper, deeper do I sink —-

I am approaching this brink:
What does it mean this death
To self? For years I’ve desired
it, but not like my desire for water;
Let me die to self-insistence, & never whine
About it as I work out this resurrection life.

Reteach me how to feed on his broken life
And let the merlot that I so dearly drink
Become my entire cosmos: bread and wine
That gleam like stars beyond their death.
I’ll drown my image in those starry waters
Until that heart-unity of single desire
Punches through —-

Oh God — give me your vine-wine, tangle me in its breath-life;
I shuck out all other desires. Please! Just one drink!
My throat is dry as death, and I detest the taste of water —


Colin Sandberg
Poet

Colin’s poetry has appeared in ONE ART and The Swift. He currently studies psychology at Washington State University and attends Grace Foursquare in Camas, Wa. He may be found sometimes at Ghost Town open mics or staring at a tree with a moleskin in hand.

Photography by Josh Hild