Beauty & the Beast + Rip Van Winkle = Wink (fairy tale poetry)

Dorlana Vann ♦ March 22, 2019 ♦ 1 Comment

Wink

by Dorlana Vann

Wink was an elf; lavender was his color.
His world was made up of sunshine and magic.
The sky was ginger, and the trees were scarlet.
All the ladies declared he was most charming.
His kind parents urged him to settle down
And to carry on his name and his beauty.

He was set up with a girl with no beauty.
Snow was sweet but lacked significant color.
Wink spent the difficult night with his eyes down.
Wishing Snow would change by way of white magic.
The more she spoke the more she did seem charming.
If only she were pink or lovely scarlet.

Suddenly the sky turned an evil scarlet.
If this was a trick it sure was a beauty.
Wink tried saying something funny and charming.
But he was nervous by this change in color.
Brilliant radiance beamed from this strange magic.
Wink and Snow thought their Heaven was falling down.

Wink woke with no idea of what went down.
He didn’t smell the sweet fragrance of scarlet
Flowers. And didn’t see his world of magic.
And the girl, Snow, was gone along with beauty.
There were trees and grass, but not the same color.
Nothing about this new strange place was charming.

People laughed, but not because Wink was charming.
He was different and strange, and they looked down
at him. Wink was a very bizarre color.
His face was no longer purple but scarlet.
This made him think just what he thought of beauty.
He longed for his homeland that was so magic.

As if by way of magnificent magic,
That which he thought before as only charming
Was now what he would define as real beauty.
Snow, as white as pure splendor, was walking down
the road. But would her expression be scarlet?
After all, she did fit this new land’s color.

Her words were soft magic, “Dear Wink. Why so down?
“I’m no longer charming.” His eyes burned scarlet.
She said, “Beauty is not defined by color.”

Wink is one of the poems in my collection, Supernatural Fairy Tales: fairy tale inspired paranormal short stories and poems. It was inspired by the short story Rip Van Winkle by Washington Irving from The Sketch-Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. England:1819 and Beauty and the Beast (French: La Belle et la Bete) by Jeanne Marie Le Prince de Beaumont. France: 1756

P.S. The sestina is my favorite type of poem to write. They have 6 stanzas, repeating 6 words at the end of each line in a certain order.  And it ends with a 3 line envoi, using one of the words inside and one at the end.  They are so much fun and a great writing challenge.