Villanelle
Sometimes, I enjoy writing poetry. There, I said it.
I used to imagine myself a poet... misunderstood, lonely, brilliant. Ah, the life of a suburban white fifteen year old male. I would write really, really bad poetry. Thank goodness I can't remember specifically (I'm sure I have copies sitting around someplace that I can find and burn), but I can get the general sense:
I awoke in an empty room
A whitewashed room
A room with many doors
And every single door I opened
Revelealed another whitewashed room
Some crap like that. It was many, many steps down from the first poem I ever wrote, which was in second grade, which was entitled "Spooky Room."
Spooky, spooky, spooky.
My room is a spooky room.
Ghosts dwell there. Goblins too.
Spooky, spooky, spooky.
Pretty good grasp of poetic devices for a seven-year-old, right? Damn! Give that kid a book deal.
Anyway, in recent years I attempt to write some sonnets. With varying degrees of success. This week, I decided that I wanted to try another form. That way, the poetry might still abjectly blow, but at least I'm practicing new (well, old) ways in which to structure it. I decided to try my hand at a villanelle.
It was hard. With such an incredibly rigid structure, it's hard to believe that even talented poets can make full use of it. I mean obviously they can.
This is a first try; I would ask you to be gentle. I would also ask myself why in hell I chose "earth" and "mirth" as my main rhyming words, since nothing in the damned language rhymes with them. Silly me. My assessment is that it ain't so bad for a scribble on a subway ride home, but then again I used to like that whitewashed room crap too.
Anyway:
My precious words mean nothing to this Earth
However I might shout, and shake, and rage.
What else to do but sing a song of mirth?
Mere longing to imbue these lines with worth
Empowers not the frail and tiny page.
My precious words mean nothing to this Earth.
Though suff'ring long of mighty words a dearth,
The world seems to insist that I engage.
What else to do but sing a song of mirth?
I've sought in vain to give my voice a berth
On paper, or upon a meager stage.
My precious words mean nothing to this Earth.
Our struggles to escape the ancient girth
Of uselessness can rattle not this cage.
What else to do but sing a song of mirth?
Searching from the moment of my birth,
The truth and the solution found in age:
My precious words mean nothing to this Earth.
What else to do but sing a song of mirth?
I used to imagine myself a poet... misunderstood, lonely, brilliant. Ah, the life of a suburban white fifteen year old male. I would write really, really bad poetry. Thank goodness I can't remember specifically (I'm sure I have copies sitting around someplace that I can find and burn), but I can get the general sense:
I awoke in an empty room
A whitewashed room
A room with many doors
And every single door I opened
Revelealed another whitewashed room
Some crap like that. It was many, many steps down from the first poem I ever wrote, which was in second grade, which was entitled "Spooky Room."
Spooky, spooky, spooky.
My room is a spooky room.
Ghosts dwell there. Goblins too.
Spooky, spooky, spooky.
Pretty good grasp of poetic devices for a seven-year-old, right? Damn! Give that kid a book deal.
Anyway, in recent years I attempt to write some sonnets. With varying degrees of success. This week, I decided that I wanted to try another form. That way, the poetry might still abjectly blow, but at least I'm practicing new (well, old) ways in which to structure it. I decided to try my hand at a villanelle.
It was hard. With such an incredibly rigid structure, it's hard to believe that even talented poets can make full use of it. I mean obviously they can.
This is a first try; I would ask you to be gentle. I would also ask myself why in hell I chose "earth" and "mirth" as my main rhyming words, since nothing in the damned language rhymes with them. Silly me. My assessment is that it ain't so bad for a scribble on a subway ride home, but then again I used to like that whitewashed room crap too.
Anyway:
My precious words mean nothing to this Earth
However I might shout, and shake, and rage.
What else to do but sing a song of mirth?
Mere longing to imbue these lines with worth
Empowers not the frail and tiny page.
My precious words mean nothing to this Earth.
Though suff'ring long of mighty words a dearth,
The world seems to insist that I engage.
What else to do but sing a song of mirth?
I've sought in vain to give my voice a berth
On paper, or upon a meager stage.
My precious words mean nothing to this Earth.
Our struggles to escape the ancient girth
Of uselessness can rattle not this cage.
What else to do but sing a song of mirth?
Searching from the moment of my birth,
The truth and the solution found in age:
My precious words mean nothing to this Earth.
What else to do but sing a song of mirth?