Villanelles
Villanelles
The villanelle is a poetic form based on repetition, with a double refrain.
Villanelle: The Divide
by Michael R. Burch
The sea was not salt the first tide...
was man born to sorrow that first day,
with the moon, a pale beacon across the Divide,
the brighter for longing, an object denied,
the tug at his heart's pink, bourgeoning clay?
The sea was not salt the first tide...
but grew bitter, bitter, man's torrents supplied.
The bride of their longing, forever astray,
her shield a cold beacon across the Divide,
flashing pale signals: Decide. Decide.
Choose me, or His Brightness, I will not stay.
The sea was not salt the first tide...
imploring her, ebbing: Abide, abide.
The silver fish flash there, the manatees gray.
The moon, a pale beacon across the Divide,
has taught us to seek Love's concealed side:
the dark face of longing, the poets say.
The sea was not salt the first tide...
the moon a pale beacon across the Divide.
Villanelle: Ordinary Love
by Michael R. Burch
Indescribable, our love, and still we say
with eyes averted, turning out the light,
"I love you, " in the ordinary way
and tug the coverlet where once we lay,
all suntanned limbs entangled, shivering, white...
indescribably in love. Or so we say.
Your hair's blonde thicket now is tangle-gray;
you turn your back; you murmur to the night,
"I love you, " in the ordinary way.
Beneath the sheets our hands and feet would stray
to warm ourselves. We do not touch despite
a love so indescribable. We say
we're older now, that "love" has had its day.
But that which Love once countenanced, delight,
still makes you indescribable. I say,
"I love you, " in the ordinary way.
Villanelle: Because Her Heart Is Tender
by Michael R. Burch
for Beth
She scrawled soft words in soap: "Never Forget, "
Dove-white on her car's window, and the wren,
because her heart is tender, might regret
it called the sun to wake her. As I slept,
she heard lost names recounted, one by one.
She wrote in sidewalk chalk: "Never Forget, "
and kept her heart's own counsel. No rain swept
away those words, no tear leaves them undone.
Because her heart is tender with regret,
bruised by razed towers' glass and steel and stone
that shatter on and on and on and on,
she stitches in wet linen: "NEVER FORGET, "
and listens to her heart's emphatic song.
The wren might tilt its head and sing along
because its heart once understood regret
when fledglings fell beyond, beyond, beyond...
its reach, and still the boot-heeled world strode on.
She writes in adamant: "NEVER FORGET"
because her heart is tender with regret.
Because Her Heart is Tender (II)
by Michael R. Burch
Because her heart is tender
there is hope some God might mend her, …
some small hope Fates might relent.
Because her heart is tender
mighty Angels, come defend her!
Even the Devil might repent.
Because her heart is tender
Jacob’s Ladder should descend here,
the heavens open, saints assent.
Because her heart is tender
why does the cruel world rend her?
Fix the world, or let it end here!
Villanelle: Hangovers
by Michael R. Burch
We forget that, before we were born,
our parents had "lives" of their own,
ran drunk in the streets, or half-stoned.
Yes, our parents had lives of their own
until we were born; then, undone,
they were buying their parents gravestones
and finding gray hairs of their own
(because we were born lacking some
of their curious habits, but soon
would certainly get them) . Half-stoned,
we watched them dig graves of their own.
Their lives would be over too soon
for their curious habits to bloom
in us (though our children were born
nine months from that night on the town
when, punch-drunk in the streets or half-stoned,
we first proved we had lives of our own) .
Double Trouble
by Michael R. Burch
The villanelle is trouble:
it’s like you’re on the bubble
of beginning to see double.
It’s like you’re on the Hubble
when the lens begins to wobble:
the villanelle is trouble.
It’s like you’re Barney Rubble
scratching itchy beer-stained stubble
because you’re seeing double.
Then your lines begin to gobble
up the good rhymes, and you hobble.
The villanelle is trouble,
just like getting sloshed in the pub’ll
begin to make you babble
because you’re seeing double.
Because the form is flubbable
and is really not that loveable,
the villanelle is trouble:
it’s like you’re seeing double.
Villanelle Sequence: Clandestine But Gentle
by Michael R. Burch
I.
Clandestine but gentle, wrapped in night,
she eavesdropped on morose codes of my heart.
She was the secret agent of delight.
The blue spurt of her match, our signal light,
announced her presence in the shadowed court:
clandestine but gentle, cloaked in night.
Her cigarette was waved, a casual sleight,
to bid me Come! or tell me to depart.
She was the secret agent of delight,
like Ingrid Bergman in a trench coat, white
as death, and yet more fair and pale (but short
with me, whenever I grew wan with fright!).
II.
Clandestine but gentle, veiled in night,
she was the secret agent of delight;
she coaxed the tumblers in some cryptic rite
to make me spill my spirit.
Lovely tart!
Clandestine but gentle, veiled in night
she waited till my tongue, untied, sang bright
but damning strange confessions in the dark...
III.
She was the secret agent of delight;
so I became her paramour. Tonight
I await her in my exile, worlds apart...
IV.
For clandestine but gentle, wrapped in night,
she is the secret agent of delight.
Hang Together, or Separately
by Michael R. Burch
Be careful whom you don't befriend
When hyenas mark their prey:
The odds will get even in the end.
Some "deplorables" may yet ascend
And since all dogs must have their day,
Be careful whom you don't befriend.
When pallid elitists condescend
What does the Good Book say?
The odds will get even in the end.
Since the LORD advised us to attend
To each other along the way,
Be careful whom you don't befriend.
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