in sestina
By Morris Dean
We almost have a normal interview
ready—next week, I promise!
So today it'll be another arithmetical sestina, this time with the six end-words 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. The key to the poem is the same as before ("Arithmetic puzzles in sestina"): Each number can be calculated by arithmetical operations involving the other five. This time, though, the number we're trying to get to appears at the end of the last line of its stanza rather than at the end of the first line. This seems more natural and I would have done it this way before if I'd thought of it before rather than after publication!
Again, the challenge for me as writer was to apply the arithmetical operations on the numbers in the order mandated by the conventions of a sestina. If you compare the pattern below with that of my four previous sestinas*, you'll see that the pattern is the same in all.
For today's sestina to serve as an interview stand-in, all I had to do was introduce another mathematically inclined interviewee. Because including 0 suggested computers to me, I have used a computer nerd! [Our questions and the one French word are in italics.]
How get something from the nothing 0?_______________
Well, it's safe to add it. To what? Oh, 1.
Numbers ascending, I see. Now add 2.
To the result, this time multiply 3.
And from the resulting nine take 4.
As the French chick said last time, voilà 5!
You are a nerd! Okay, now start with 5.
To reduce to zed, times-it by 0.
Then from nothing, by adding, go to 4!
To get back to where we started, add 1.
Then, having gone down by subtracting 3,
End up where sestina says we must: 2.
You have a flare for this. Start now with 2.
Hmm, all right, then. Let us to that add 5.
Then descend to twice the start: subtract 3.
And hold tight there by subtracting (0
Times what sestina's next number is—1)
To end, as I said, at twice the start: 4.
Darn, I thought that'd have you! Now start with 4.
You may wonder, but square it—power 2.
Then, to get a dozen three, subtract 1.
To get the end result, divide by 5.
And, again, hold tight by subtracting 0,
To end—do I have to say it?— at 3.
You're incorrigible! Now start with 3.
Thanks for the compliment. Multiply 4
And hold at a dozen by adding 0.
Then halve the dozen dividing by 2.
And of those remaining take away 5
To stop where sestina says we must: 1.
Now here's a tricky puzzle: start with 1.
Ah, yes, I see. To that power take 3.
To the unit, to get to six, add 5.
And to get a third of six, subtract 4,
Then go to null—subtract from itself 2.
"Null"? Well that's where sestina says: 0.
Last words mine too: take 1 to power 4,
Multiply by 3 and to that add 2,
Then from itself take 5 to reach 0!
* "Persimmons in sestina," "Family deaths in churning sestina," "Blog-related murder in sestina," and "Arithmetic puzzles in sestina."
Copyright © 2013 by Morris Dean
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