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Challenge
Write a Villanelle Poem
The villanelle has nineteen lines, with a very specific rhyme and repetition pattern. The lines are broken up into five tercets (three line stanzas) followed by a quatrain (four line stanza). The rhyme scheme is aba aba aba aba aba abaa which means there are only two rhymes. "One Art" by Elizabeth Bishop is very famous and beautiful example of a villanelle. Poems should follow these strict rules to be considered for this challenge.

Take a lover before you’re physically frail

Take a lover before you’re physically frail

However linear time may interfere

Send blood to the cheeks before permanently pale

Eventually bones, joints, and ligaments fail

Oh to bask in the sweet carnal veneer

Take a lover before you’re physically frail

The body’s a temple and then it’s a jail

A waterlogged vessel difficult to steer

Send blood to the cheeks before permanently pale

Don’t wait until the end of your tale

For smiles and temptations in nursing gear

Take a lover before you’re physically frail

As your coffin lies waiting for that final nail

Tortured missed chances year after year

Send blood to the cheeks before permanently pale

The blunderbuss is loaded and you are the quail

Life barely lived and this is the fear

Take a lover before you’re physically frail

Send blood to the cheeks before permanently pale

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