The French repeating forms have never been my strong suit, so I'm pushing my luck with this curtal villanelle.


Villanelle-ish

To cut a villanelle a few lines short
Would be a literary felony
No poet in his right mind could support.

The world would greet with a derisive snort
Any such bobtailed pseudo-poetry.
Don’t cut your villanelles a few lines short.

To start a villanelle, then to abort
The mission, leaving off a line or three,
Is something no sane poet could support.

Just two rhymes, 19 lines – this form might thwart
Some versifiers’ ingenuity,
But that is no excuse to cut it short.

Lines 1 and 3 as they recur can sport
Small changes to avoid monotony,
But no bard who’s not bonkers could support

A change like this that cuts the whole poem short.

Okay, I give in. The temptation is too great. This thing was published in The Brazen Head (and I'm trying to assemble a MS. of funny stuff that it'll go in).

Upon the Problem of the Envoi in the Contemporary Ballade

“The envoi of a ballade is typically addressed to a prince.”
—LitCharts web page, “Ballade”

Though slant and half will often squeak you by,
it’s tricky to persuade the thing to rhyme.
With three bare possibilities, you fry
your brains and end up scrambled half the time.
And then you face the awkward pantomime,
the pose, the grand traditional to-do:
But now that tabloids roll them all in slime,
what prince out there’s worth dedicating to?

The little European kings? Just try
admiring rigid stick figures who mime
in medalled chests and pricey pageantry
what’s lost now to equality’s long climb.
The Saudis, credibly accused of crime
too horrible for thought, a lurid brew
of evils? The idea’s too icky. I’m
perplexed: Whom could one dedicate this to?

Maybe a different sort of royalty
would solve it (yes, we’re turning on a dime).
Some country king of braid and gold lamé
like Elvis, fat and sequinned, past his prime?
Some prelate seated on the cherubim?
Some Koch or Musk or Bezos? Sacré bleu.
Some laureled poet with a Guggenheim?
Where is a prince to dedicate this to?

Forget it, sovereigns all-too-unsublime—
anointed, crowned, and human through and through.
I think I’m done with working overtime
to find a prince to dedicate this to.

I really hate the triolet;
In Spring or not, I find them hell.
“O, tra-la-la, it’s cold and wet.”
I really hate the triolet,
A form I wish I could forget.
More, even, than the villanelle,
I really hate the triolet;
In Spring or not, I find them hell.

I kill a poem
and realise that some poets
have been watching me.

THESE WORDS

These words belong together.
Don't break these words apart.
It doesn't matter whether
they sound dumb or they sound smart.

They're just how I arranged them
and I'll mind it very much
if I hear that you have changed them.
You can read, but please don't touch.

A poem's
An inner
Weather
Breeder

Triolets are not that bad.
I like them quite a bit.
They're elegant, and I might add,
triolets are not as bad
as Brian claims (they drive him mad),
though this one may be shit.
Triolets are not that bad.
I like them quite a bit.

Do?

Do unread
Love poems
Love?

Do couplets
On divorce
Still rhyme?

Do sonnets
Have rooms
For loners?

Do triolets
Triple
Pleasure?

Do villanelles’
Repetends
Love to rappel?

Do quatrains
Square
Dance?

SMALL, WHIMSICAL RHYME

Sometimes you find
a chunk of time
in which there is nothing to do,

no WiFi, no cable,
no books, no phone,
no friends, no games. Just you.

It's happened to me,
so I figured I'd try
to write a small, whimsical rhyme.

No reason at all,
except that I find
it's a great way of passing the time.

A poet they like to call Pompous
signed up to The Sphere for a rumpus.
But the critics did hate
his forced rhymes, they did grate,
and his meter lacked metrical compass.