Villanelle 5

For my fifth villanelle in this exploration, I went darker, or at least angrier. Again, I've been free with my meter.

The repetitive nature of the alternating refrains of the villanelle do, as I have mention previously, lend themselves to obsession, or fevered memory. In this piece I wanted to utilize that refraining style to illicit thoughts of anger, (in this case over a damaged relationship of some kind). We tend to be repetitive when we fight, or when we are angry about something, and we tend to emphasize the things that have angered or hurt us the most, sometimes to the exclusion of other, more productive thoughts.

Who is at fault within the relationship on which this poem is based? I'll let you decide.

*

I refuse to take the blame,
(Though I'm the one you will indict.)
I always lose this stupid game.

I think that it's a crying shame;
You never think I could be right.
I refuse to take the blame.

For years and years it's been the same;
No longer will I choose to fight.
I always lose this stupid game.

I wonder when exactly you became
So cold. So angry. So full of spite.
I refuse to take the blame.

Your bitter, raging heart, I've tried to tame,
But you won't accept the light.
I always lose this stupid game.

Well, I shall never speak your name!
Remain here in your manufactured night!
I refuse to take the blame!
I always lose this stupid game.

Villanelle 4

For this, my fourth villanelle of this exploration, I have once again been loose with the meter of any given line. I am finding that the form offers much more depth of feeling when it isn't limited to iambic pentameter and other specified meters. It's becoming clear to me that the potency of this form lies almost completely in the rhyme scheme and the refrain structure, and not in the meter itself, so I'm likely from here on out to write lines in a more free-metre.

All that being said, I think this poem is my best villanelle so far in this exploration. I made an effort to step outside of the usual rhymes. (The same sounds tend to show up in most villanelles I write for some reason.) I think I've achieved something that is both emotionally resonant but also familiar and coherent. You be the judge for yourself.

*

There's still a voice that I can hear,
A memory that won't escape detection.
When I feel pleasure, pain is near.

A haunting. Not so loud, but clear.
A love not gone despite its imperfection.
There's still a voice that I can hear.

The people and the things I once held dear
Remain in pieces in my heart's collection.
When I feel pleasure, pain is near.

Like black mud stains to bright white robes adhere,
So to the soul a lost love's recollection.
There's still a voice that I can hear.

Though numbed a little more each passing year,
Some fits of pain remain, like an infection.
When I feel pleasure, pain is near.

My present and my future course, I steer.
But there's a periodic interjection;
There's still a voice that I can hear.
When I feel pleasure, pain is near.