Villanelle

Pay attention. This is complicated.
There are quite a number of verse forms that have limited rhyming patterns and repeated lines. One such verse pattern is the Villanelle. This is how it works:

There are six stanzas.
The first five are three lines each. The sixth has four lines.
The first line of the first stanza is repeated as the third line of the second stanza, the third line of the fourth stanza and the third line of the sixth stanza.
The third line of the first stanza is repeated as the third line of the third stanza, the third line of the fifth stanza and the fourth line of the sixth stanza.
In each stanza line one and line three rhyme.
All the line twos rhyme with each other, a different rhyme to the line 1/3 rhyme.

Did you get that? Good. There may be a test later. Anyway they are an absolute bugger to write and maintain any kind of sense. Especially as, though they don’t have any defined metre, they should at least use a consistent one. This one does – iambic pentameter, which made it an even worse bugger to write.


Then and Now

We sat there, side by side, upon the beach
And watched the distant sparks of midnight flames:
A moment when we had no need of speech.

It seemed the future might lie in our reach;
We whispered secret lovers’ language names;
We sat there side by side upon the beach.

The night and fading sparks had much to teach
Of how, what happens later sometimes shames
A moment when we had no need of speech.

So many years have passed now since when, each
Describing, to the other, hoped for aims,
We sat there, side by side, upon the beach.

A bitter sermon time can sometimes preach
Of love and loss and how that loss yet blames
A moment when we had no need of speech.

Instead of thinking now upon the breach
I wonder if like me somewhere she claims:
We sat there side by side upon the beach,
A moment when we had no need of speech.