Virginia didn’t know today would be a day of stones
until she felt darkness resurrect her demons,
and knew history was walking across her spirit
to the clanging bell of madness.
Her love had once endured the madness
of a mind so bleak it robbed her spirit,
tore joy from its stem and lay stones
of morbid thought to house demons.
Didn’t war have enough demons
without the weight of insanity’s stones
crushing her thoughts into cloying madness
where there could be no shelter for her spirit?
If only she could accept the willingness of her husband’s
spirit
to sacrifice his days to carry her through her madness,
but she couldn’t see him once again suffering her demons
when his freedom could be secured by the weight of stones.
With her coat pockets filled with stones
she let the River Ouse drown her demons.
©Susie Clevenger 2015
On March 28,1941 Virginia Woolf committed suicide by filling her coat pockets with rocks and walking into the River Ouse.
At Real Toads Bjorn Rudberg challenged us to write his adaption of a sestina. I am not good with poetry forms, but I gave it my best effort.
Comments
I know what you mean about the challenge of poetry forms~ To me its like solving a crossword puzzle, ha ~
Per the poem, I feel the husband was haunted forever by the demons' reminders of how she died, for him.
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ZQ