Turn a Twisting New

Jan 20, 2026

Turn a twisting new, a stranger you’ve become,

Keen mourning breaks cold on an ingrown heart,

Wake up, wake up, your strings are undone.

—

Swallows cry gulping at the glint of the sun,

And flash blinding wings to fling terrible darts,

Turn a twisting new, a stranger you’ve become.

—

Round and round, a soul’s cord spun,

Wept into whips of thoughts flung far apart,

Wake up, wake up, your strings are undone.

—

A shot of light Bathsheba’s sick eyes stun,

Lazarus is alive, and from hell is ready to depart,

Turn a twisting new, a stranger you’ve become,

—

To another place your sorrow has been won,

Hello, my sweet, sweet sweetheart,

Wake up, wake up, your strings are undone.

—

A harsher song has never been sung,

A cruel blessing on a opaline journey embarks,

Turn a twisting new, a stranger you’ve become,

Wake up, wake up, your strings are undone.

A villanelle (five tercets, one quatrain) written in 47 minutes on 1.19.2026 for my personal weekly poem project.

The Paranoid Android