Challenge
Write a Villanelle, My Genius Poets!
The villanelle is a French verse form consisting of five three-line stanzas and a final quatrain, with the first and third lines of the first stanza repeating alternately in the following stanzas. These two refrain lines from the final couplet in the quatrain. Here's what that looks like (letters for rhyme scheme, numbers mean a line repeats):
A1 B A2//A B A1//A B A2//A B A1//A B A1 A2
No theme, no prompt other than make it great.
For examples of villanelles, please enjoy:
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44976/the-house-on-the-hill
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/150043/letter-to-my-blackout
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47536/one-art
Not Present
Unexpected downtime, I thought that we might play
Instead you pace and want to flee
Why can you not just stay?
I thought this was a good place to be…
Nowhere to go on this rainy day
Here with me
Yet I can feel your love decay
And sense your longing to be free
Why can you not just stay?
But other places you long to see
And your nerves, they seem to fray
Here with me
“Out there” seems to always outweigh
Time only spent with me
Why can you not just stay?
I wonder how long you’ve felt this way
A rainy day-- the truth exposed, I only have this plea:
Why can you not just stay
Here with me?
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