Villanelles

[Nick Urfe]

Perhaps this has been done before, but there do seem to be some people out there who really enjoy playing with structures, and there are also some really great short lines floating around from the Ten Word Challenge.

Villanelles are cool because you can spin those lines around and around and look at them from different angles. I've taken some shots at them. You can see the pattern from the poems, but just to write it, the rhyme scheme is
A first refrain
B
A second refrain

A
B
A first refrain

A
B
A second refrain

A
B
A first refrain

A
B
A second refrain

A
B
A first refrain
A second refrain

the following are my attempts. I would love to see some sexy villanelles ... but I haven't really gotten there yet.

 

[Nick Urfe]

Kiss

Because of an ill-advised kiss,
Lasting moments or a lifetime,
A life will love or love will miss.

So slight the bridge from hope to bliss,
So far to fall so hard to climb,
Because of an ill-advised kiss.

On one side that, the other this,
Around around the road will wind,
A life will love or love will miss.

Quick hearts fly over the abyss,
While dead hearts sink--the heavy kind,
Because of an ill-advised kiss.

The choice is made when he insists,
The choice to touch or flee his lips,
A life will love or love will miss.

Eternal joy or sullen tryst,
Worthless or precious truth devined.
Because of an ill-advised kiss,
A life will love or love will miss.

 

[Nick Urfe]

Bet

I would not waste another year
Begging stubborn life to begin,
Waiting for fortune to appear.

Why stand and wait in gambler's fear
For the dealer to deal me in?
I would not waste another year.

The choice worth choosing is unclear
To a chooser who has always been
Waiting for fortune to appear.

But some would have me ever peer
Into a future locked within.
I would not wait another year.

I know the stakes. What I hold dear
Is tumbling as the wheel spins,
Waiting for fortune to appear.

So now I'll bet and let them jeer
Should I lose or should I win:
"He would not waste another year
Waiting for fortune to appear."

 

[Nick Urfe]

Mind

Daft! Daft! The mind exists in clouds.
Last! Last! It tumbles through life's race.
So laugh, and revel in the shroud.

Why never speak the truth aloud
And watch as one's own lies give chase?
Daft! Daft! The mind exists in clouds.

What can one do when one's too proud
Or ignorant to show one's face?
Laugh! Laugh! And revel in the shroud.

One will be brilliantly endowed
Only when it is far too late.
Daft! Daft! The mind exists in clouds.

Doomed ever to be lost in crowds
How do we find our proper place?
We laugh, laugh and revel in the shroud.

The king himself will always bow
To hones fools with wondrous grace.
For the daft mind exists in clouds,
He laughs and revels in the shroud.

___________

This last one doesn't perfectly repeat the refrains, but as the structure argument in the hypersonnet thread demonstrated,
I don't think it's necessary to cling to every detail as long as the ideas and feelings fit together.

poems

 

[The_Fool]

Oh Shit....Angeline, hide your eyes....

 

[Nick Urfe]

um... speaking of Angeline...

It was her villanelle that led me to try my own. She links it on all her posts vilanelle francais
In addition, I think its a great thing that people who have been trying this sort of thing for a long time are willing to at least humor people who haven't been trying it for quite so long a time.
Don't you?

 

[The_Fool]

Re: um... speaking of Angeline...

It was her villanelle that led me to try my own. She links it on all her posts vilanelle francais
In addition, I think its a great thing that people who have been trying this sort of thing for a long time are willing to at least humor people who haven't been trying it for quite so long a time.
Don't you?

Sorry, bit of an inside joke. Angeline and I have been trading repartees over formal versus informal poetry.

Angeline adores vilanelles, but she absolutely swoons over Sestinas.

To me a good poem is a good poem, whether formal or informal. The power of the formal poem is that it forces the poet to exercise more rigorous control over the rhyme scheme, the rhythm of the poem and the succinctness of the message. Some prefer to write formal poems. I prefer to let the poem dictate the format, although I do occasionally write formal poems as an exercise for the above listed reasons, or to be an absolute smartass...

The deceptive challenge of the villanelle, the triolet and any other poem form that uses repetitive phrasing is to create a poem using phrasing that has multiple meanings, such that each time the phrase is used, there is at least a degree of difference in meaning.

I will never get there, at least for now, because I don't want to work that hard at a poem. I don't have the time.

Of course I may be preaching to the choir. If so, I apologize.

Best of luck with your efforts, I think you will find several poets interested in the more formal poetry forms.

Fool

 

[Angeline]

Angeline adores vilanelles, but she absolutely swoons over Sestinas.

Only yours baby, Lol. I'm all agog about your alliteration, too. Write me another, why don'tcha?

Actually Nick I find the vilanelle the hardest form of all. It's much more a mental exercise to fit logic to repeating lines, than words. I've written three of them and needed tylenol with every one.

Btw, the most famous vilanelle is Dylan Thomas' Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night. Elizabeth Bishop has a great one, too, that I'll try to find.

Here's another of mine.

Vilanelle Février

Snow’s heavy silence crushing ground
Beyond the pane her eyes inspect
The empty landscape falling down

To nothing loud as quiet sound
Or cheek on cold glass to reflect
Snow’s heavy silence crushing ground

Where ice and smooth meet clear surround
The twilight of her dark aspect
The empty landscape falling down

On barren tree with branches frowned
In drooping weight its curves direct:
Snow’s heavy silence crushing ground

Her palm’s etched glassy shadow found
A frozen still life’s counter effect
The empty landscape falling down

The quietude of winter drowned
A breathless world of deep neglect
Snow’s heavy silence crushing ground
The empty landscape falling down

 

[Nick Urfe]

inspiring

Angeline, that's really nice. (btw... dylan thomas should not be mentioned here without us all crossing ourselves and reverently sighing ... portrait of the artist as a young dog... the beach of Falesa... these things make alcoholism look like the rosetta stone for poetry)

So... I don't know why its so headachy. Most of the lines are prewritten once you have the couplet. If it's a good couplet, as you're eminently capable of producing, it should be easy to throw it around a bit.
Your winter imagery inspired this... I wrote it very quickly (half hour) so perhaps its not very good (neither is it a perfect villanelle)

but you know...

Lonely hands grow cold, but you know
Pushing pale skin together heats
Fertile springtime, melting snow.

The French, the Dutch, even Yanks glow
To see their bodies meet and greet
Sexy springtime, melting snow.

Like icy lakes, trod on winter souls
Await April's gold avian fleets.
Lonely hands grow cold, but you know ...

Edmund climbed the whole world to show
He could defeat the frigid peak
Like the springtime, melting snow.

Hearts beating mercury that flows
Silently low from heads to feet
While the hands grow cold, but you know ...

The plowman fails to try and sow
December ground--he must retreat
His tired hands, but you know
He'll see springtime, melting snow.

-Nick
posted poems

 

[Angeline]

So you were right....

once I got the repeating lines down, it didn't hoit a bit. This one took me about an hour to write and no palliatives were required.


To bloom and wither like a kiss,
we wax and wane adrift toward night
as evening falls darkling to bliss.

So close your eyes, dear, reminisce,
and let my lips on yours alight
to bloom and wither like a kiss.

I’ll not let moments drop amiss,
our mouths were destined for this flight
as evening falls darkling to bliss.

For tender turning such as this
is captured shaded by twilight
to bloom and wither like a kiss.

And if such love seems an abyss,
know dissonance yields second sight
as evening falls darkling to bliss.

Two love-locked lovers shan’t dismiss
the carnal swoop to love’s birthright--
to bloom and wither like a kiss
as evening falls darkling to bliss.

 

[Nick Urfe]

wow

somewhere, Dylan Thomas stood up and applauded.
I fear to try again.

 

[Angeline]

wow
somewhere, Dylan Thomas stood up and applauded.
I fear to try again.

Well, now I'm blushing. Thank you.
And you darn well better try again!

 

[jthserra]

my first (and only... so far)

A Fall

To look at leaves that once were poems
and poets: branches against which
the colors blossom, autumn blooms

in elm, oak, magnolia perfumes
the unfolding buds strangely twitch
to look at leaves that once were poems.

Faint greens harden to verdant gloom
a depth and strength, vascular pitch
the colors blossom, autumn blooms

bright, fiery hues, the verse consumes
balanced on stems, a poet's stitch
to look at leaves that once were poems

that tip and tumble: falling looms
a failing voice, worn, graveled hitch
the colors blossom, autumn blooms.

The scattered forms at earthly tombs
are folded, crackled, the soil rich
to look at leaves that once were poems
the colors blossom, autumn blooms.

 

[Icingsugar]

Ok, this is so ankward. I really cant do stuctured poetry this way...


Hours

All the hours that we waste,
falling foolish into lust,
savoring that crazy taste.

How we searched that moment praised.
Reasoned, justified, discussed,
all the hours that we waste.

How our tired excuses raced,
told our hearts how we disgust
savoring that crazy taste.

How our efforts were disgraced,
how we saw that spend we must,
all the hours that we waste.

Ghosts defeated, horrors faced,
turning demons into dust,
savoring that crazy taste.

Doubt of time is now erased.
Lead us well, we grant you trust,
all the hours that we waste,
savoring that crazy taste.



It seems like I painted myself into a corner with 'waste' , which almost only rhymes with past tense verbs. Any pointers prom you pros? Did I miss something?