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.
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