This is A Poetic Form Where Stanza Lines End In the Same Words, All Compiled in a Couplet at the End. c/c?

The rules on sestinas are far more porous than school textbooks lead one to believe (don't even get me started on villanelles). This is a freeverse sestina - it is a perfectly usual form in US poetry since at least the 1950's.

Your last line is a regular iambic pentameter. I don't say that this is necessarily wrong, but you need to think about whether you actually want that (lots of US freeverse poems end on a regular iambic pentameter, it is often a bad choice - but certainly not always).

Aside from the formal considerations (there are no serious problems, and addressing the minor ones probably needs a proper one-on-one workshop environment) I am impressed by the amount of localising detail you pack into this poem. It is especially praiseworthy that HD vouches for the authenticity of the detail.

Your narrative is strong, and the way the persona shifts from disappointment with Bill in the present to puzzlement over the unfulfilled dreams of a girlhood she spent with her father in the middle section gives strong clues to the troubling sense of missed chances which is probably the spine of the poem. There is a minor problem that the reality of the present seems both wanner and less interesting than the incursive insistence of the past, but perhaps finally solving this would send you off into deep confrontations between yourself and your hypostatised narrator that you might not want to deal with - no matter how much it would improve the poem. Sometimes to write a better poem we have to become a better person: whether or not that is worth it is always a personal calculation.

The poem is not far off excellent up until "I married Bill / and moved onto linoleum". After that one begins to suspect that the poet may be avoiding the real issues by packaging them in cliché

I dreamed of chandeliers and wine-

red drapes, but children came like clockwork;

rather than taking the hurt and its consequences.

But a poem that is willing to get into water this deep will always have value, even if for whatever reason it finally chooses not to attempt to swim to the other side (with the attendant risk of drowning en route, naturally).

Interesting formally, interesting stylistically, and interesting subject matter. You have put yourself at risk with this poem.

It is easily good enough to workshop, maybe even to perform. You should think about it.

There are bad things on the dark side, but there are more good things.

......

Pay no mind to Floop: he's for a jig or a tale of bawdy, or he sleeps.

This is a very entertaining piece on a number of levels. I really appreciate the discipline of the form, though I was a little confused with the switch from billiards to Bill; I kept looking for yards.

Tells a great story-

Nicely done

Edit- appreciate the additional details, you have inspired me to try this... but I don't think I will be posting it any time soon. It seems as though the enjambment really helps to make this form work well. It takes a bit of emphasis off of the final word, leaving it highlighted. One thing I really like about yours is the places where the use of repeated words was especially clever, and not there out of requirement.

As usual a wonderful piece of work, I have travelled the world a few times and have lived in quite a bit of it and I would love a pound for every bar I have visited. When I come to think of it, the ambiance of the place was the decor and the smells, stale cigarettes, billiard chalk and sour beer. That is where real people were, not the glitzy chrome and mock leather. You have taken me back many years and I don't know if I should thank you or not.

I was raised in Tennessee and this rings true of a time in the past.

Your story is engrossing - I was right there with you. Skill that takes.

I enjoy this form and you have taught me a "thang". You have authenticity.

It is hard to escape - but when a woman is determined she can do most anything.

Good words to read Adeline C. I wish you would post more - I thoroughly enjoyed this.

There is living in this poem

It has scents and color and life

There is an earthy quality that drew me in

and brought back some memories...

Thank you for this poem..and well done

my favorite line" I married Bill and moved on

to linoleum " painted a picture..all this needed

was a velvet Elvis

I had to jump to the end to figure out what you were on about

Shades of Blue

Thirteen in fives

Never trade a kiss for a kick

Words ending in S

Ssex

That is what your piece read like, gibberish referring to gibberish minus any cleverness or meaning

How many 24's do you need to make 24?

Edit: On reading your further comments I see that beating the reader to death with repetition and inanity was INTENTIONAL. This makes acrostics look like Shakespeare.

A daunting task, well composed.

Visceral, concise, with a momentum

that moves in rhythm of a with song,

sung by a chorus of divergent heartbeats.

Honest in its realization of "this

unglamorous world", how people and events

affect it, the separate peace we must

ratify and realize a treaty,

drawn, hidden in weeds, like abandoned,

rusted rails of forgotten track.

Only in hindsight lies the blur of

lost joy and present consequence.

We only assume the assessment of

the aformentioned is earned wisdom.

(The only alternatve for those who will not see

is bitterness).

Admirable, adeline.

This is a really good story poem all emotional and stuff ump's in dreamers love and trans and tears

and wanting to have a gallant princes .. ''then you found Bill '' What more can I say .. :)

Excellent poetry I really enjoyed the read Thanks :)

Sorry I didn't comment earlier. What an interesting poem and format.

I enjoyed reading it. Everything else has already been said.

Thank you.

Nice