By Bob Dougherty
Oh hell, I’ll write a villanelle today.
Though wise men at their end know(1) it’s a blight.
Maybe a cento villanelle, OK?
Time only knows the price we have to pay(2);
and further still at an unearthly height(4).
Oh hell, I’ll write a villanelle today.
Now that I have your heart by heart(5) astray
with wine and women and song(6) ‘til twilight.
Maybe a cento villanelle, OK?
And learn, too late, they grieve it on its way(1),
yet gather them while we may(6) before night.
Oh hell, I’ll write a villanelle today.
When I know there is nothing more to say(3),
I’ll claim the time was neither wrong nor right(4).
Maybe a cento villanelle, OK?
If we should stumble when musicians play(2),
like men who caught and sang the sun in flight(1).
Oh hell, I’ll write a villanelle today.
Maybe a cento villanelle, OK?
1. Dylan Thomas: Do not go Gentle into That Good Night
2. W. H. Auden: If I Could Tell You
3. Edwin Arlington Robinson: The House on the Hill
4. Robert Frost: Acquainted with the Night
5. Louise Bogan: Song of the Last Act
6. Earnest Christopher Dowson: Villanelle of the Poet’s Road
Oh hell, I’ll write a villanelle today.
Though wise men at their end know(1) it’s a blight.
Maybe a cento villanelle, OK?
Time only knows the price we have to pay(2);
and further still at an unearthly height(4).
Oh hell, I’ll write a villanelle today.
Now that I have your heart by heart(5) astray
with wine and women and song(6) ‘til twilight.
Maybe a cento villanelle, OK?
And learn, too late, they grieve it on its way(1),
yet gather them while we may(6) before night.
Oh hell, I’ll write a villanelle today.
When I know there is nothing more to say(3),
I’ll claim the time was neither wrong nor right(4).
Maybe a cento villanelle, OK?
If we should stumble when musicians play(2),
like men who caught and sang the sun in flight(1).
Oh hell, I’ll write a villanelle today.
Maybe a cento villanelle, OK?
1. Dylan Thomas: Do not go Gentle into That Good Night
2. W. H. Auden: If I Could Tell You
3. Edwin Arlington Robinson: The House on the Hill
4. Robert Frost: Acquainted with the Night
5. Louise Bogan: Song of the Last Act
6. Earnest Christopher Dowson: Villanelle of the Poet’s Road