I don't have the time to be formally perfect this evening, so this must be considered a "non-villanelle from hell."
When I discovered I'd been sent to hell,
the devil put me in a rocking chair
and told me I must write a villanelle
per day forever. By the sound and smell
I knew that there were other people there,
and soon I saw them through the smoke of hell,
and one cried out, "I never learned to spell,
and now I'm paying for it!" In despair,
another cried, "I hate this villanelle,
but I loved semicolons much too well."
And as I heard them rave and rant and swear,
I knew I was in Formal Poet Hell --
I never wrote a verse that I could sell
and now I won't be published anywhere,
or ever leave my seat in Poet Hell
or finish up this endless villanelle.
Digression: I'm reminded of a favorite Episcopal joke.
A woman dies and goes to hell. The devil places her at a table with three other women, where they are doomed to play bridge forever.
So she says, "Why are you here?"
The first woman says "I'm Catholic, but I used to eat meat on fast days."
The second woman says, "I'm Jewish, but I used to eat pork."
The third woman says, "I'm a Baptist, but I used to drink Scotch."
And the newcomer says, "I'm an Episcopalian, and I once ate my
entire dinner with my salad fork."
(Well, I guess you had to be there...)
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