Villanelle purgatory

 

Villanelle purgatory

Just give me five tercets, something French and existential

Five tercets, and an aba rhyme scheme followed by a quatrain

It looks easy on the page. What is the secret to the villanelle?

All my scribble is going to hell tryin to write a villanelle

I had to look it up, oh well, and I got more confused with every page

I want to write something swell, something French and existential

I wonder if all poets dwell in this special kind of hell

Scribbling rhymes in villanelle, until they give up in a rage

It looks easy on the page, what is the secret to the villanelle?

At least I know now what a tercet is. Oh yes i know it very well

But the strict rhyming is beginning to feel a little like a cage

What I need is something special, something French and existential

Finally on the fifth stanza, I’m getting there and that’s essential

One must go on even if it’s dreadful, at least it’s something on the page

(Even if not widely appreciated) What is the damn secret to the villanelle?

I know Dylan Thomas got it right, his rage, rage poem is fabulously swell

You don’t even notice his rhyme, you just hear it, you engage

I’ve written five tercets in aba now, but nothing French or existential

It looks so easy on the page. What is the secret to the real villanelle?

Day 23: today’s (optional) prompt takes its inspiration from Kiki Petrosino’s loose villanelle, “Nursery.” Try your hand today at your own take on a villanelle, and have the poem end on a question.