Tag Archives: French verse forms

Only Our Effort: villanelle

I don’t believe that gods watch us at all,
or bother with our lives in any way;
only our effort makes or breaks our fall.

Perhaps it gives us hope, such folderol,
or cheats fear-mongers of their gruesome play.
I don’t believe that gods watch us at all.

The truth is that no matter who we call,
if answers come, it’s not because we pray.
Only our effort makes or breaks our fall.

We find no mule is kicking in that stall,
just empty promise of reward, someday.
I don’t believe the gods watch us at all.

Some say that god’s an ocean, us, salt dolls;
that finding the divine, we melt away.
Only our effort makes or breaks our fall.

From dust we come, and back to dust we crawl;
there is no proof of any other way.
I don’t believe that gods watch us at all;
only our effort makes or breaks our fall.

07 JUN 2017

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A Single Blink: triolet

A moment’s span is very little time;
a single blink and half of it is gone.
Not long enough to make ambition’s climb,
a moment’s span is very little time,
which makes its wasting quite a solemn crime.
On such small pegs, life’s hat is hung upon.
A moment’s span is very little time;
a single blink and half of it is gone.

07 JUN 2017

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What is Love: sestina

Is love a thing that lasts, or a mere trinket,
a toy that fascinates until it bores,
a passing fancy, or eternal compact
between two souls and never any more,
a gift from gods above, or social stricture
meant as a mere distraction for the mind?

If only short-term passion or mere pastime,
who was the first poor fool to ever think it?
Imagine, if you can, that sadist’s picture
of all the violence that love held in store.
It’s hard to even fathom a much more
effective way to stymie human contact.

And what divine creator is so lacking
compassion for their children, all mankind,
that our connecting is a frightening chore,
as fragile as a momentary blink?
Who would believe in such gods any more,
that leaven pain in such a heavy mixture?

And yet, if love is an eternal fixture,
there seems about it a confounding lack
of solid substance built in at its core;
it takes so long for even two to find,
yet needs so little work and time to sink it.
How could it last beyond a day or more?

It seems so ill-equipped for what’s in store:
a world that frowns on any cheerful picture,
that trades not in eternity, but trinkets
designed never to bind, but just attract.
Thus all the poets say that love is blind;
what difference, when our eyesight proves so poor?

Does love last once it’s left the showroom floor,
or does it leave its victims far from shore,
where stripped of all illusion, each one finds
what they imagined was a solid mixture
begins to crumble into dust and crack,
and leave them on a sea with naught to drink?

No, love is more than either of these pictures;
you neither score, nor spend time keeping track.
You find eternity in every moment’s wink.

26 MAY 2017

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The Use of Dreams: rondine

What is the use of dreams devoid of action,
that linger on as hopes before they die;
and while they last, convince us if we try
that in the end we will find satisfaction.
Such wistful shadows taunt us to distraction;
lost in the mist, we separate in factions
and dissipate and fade out, by and by.
    What is the use?

If dreams and hope are to have any traction,
they must inspire our deeds, not just reactions.
We must find rousing songs, not lullabies,
and exercise our wings if we would fly.
If not, life is continuing subtraction;
    what is the use?

11 MAY 2017

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The World Remains: rondelet

The world remains,
despite our self-indulgent, hateful ways;
the world remains
through our brief, but continued growing pains,
when most would find a reason not to stay.
Despite our morbid and destructive play,
the world remains.

10 MAY 2017

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Meat or Wood: rondel supreme

They say to run your blade against the grain
if you would safely slice in meat or wood,
yet seek the easy way out when we should
accept that gain and glory require pain.

What makes us human, with our massive brains,
is that we choose to suffer, when we could
select to run our blade against the grain
if we would safely slice in meat or wood.

With conscious choice against personal gain,
in service to another, greater good,
unlike the low and primitive, who would
by instinct flee in fear from strife and strain,
we choose to lay our blades against the grain
and slice out equal portions, meat or wood.

9 MAY 2017

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Such a World: rondel

What sense can you make of such a world
where kindness and consideration fail,
and ignorance, its angry, hard fist curled,
destroys all to build more graveyards and jails?

When hatred’s flag has been proudly unfurled,
has culture’s last ship onward set its sails?
What sense can one make of this world
when kindness and consideration fails?

Forget the single grain, the oyster’s pearl;
there is no private gold, no separate grail.
The ocean’s parts held in your tiny pail
show just a pattern’s glimpse, merely a purl.
What sense can you make of such a world?

08 MAY 2017

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