POETRY FRIDAY: A VILLANELLE

I was challenged by a colleague to write a villanelle. Ouch, they are hard! In some ways, the form demands a kind of incantatory frame of mind - those repeated lines just do something trance-like. So, of course, when I'm challenged, and when there's a form demanding something from me, I want to do just the opposite of what it asks. In this case, I make it go an intellectual direction, even though the argument between head and heart is what it's actually about.  My heart is almost always quieter than my head -  not always good.

In any case, I'll offer up the resulting villanelle for Poetry Friday.

AT PLAY

This is the way Head plays:
cultivating the Art of the Clever
whenever Heart has nothing to say.

I’m upset with Cleverness today
though sometimes he’s my lover.
This is the way Head plays

with me, the not quite innocent way
a lover does, our purposes severed
whenever Heart has nothing to say.

Heart, Head – their display
of appetites in me is hand delivered.
This is their way – the play’s

the thing wherein the bray
of Head projects while Heart withers,
having nothing quite as loud to say.

Head, Heart whispers, find a clever way
to end this. Do it one way or another.
And so -  Head plays
and Heart has nothing to say.
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Poetry Friday today is being hosted over at THE MISS RUMPHIUS EFFECT.   Head over to see what other people have posted!