Villanelles are Villainous.. >:(

So far, two of these are my least favorites (lately at any rate), they aren't my normal style and they don't feel as much like me.  BUT, I've been working on control and being able to write better within standard frameworks.  So more Frost than cummings- more Tennyson than Atwood.  One has just a hint of structure, the other is so structured I could hardly stand it.  But I did.  For the sake of growth and not just writing one way because that comes most easily to me.  Variety!  However, the Villanelle nearly killed me- its' iambic pentameter and the rhyme scheme is:
A1/B/A2
A/B/A1
A/B/A2
A/B/A1
A/B/A2
A/B/A1/A2
So you have to really wrestle with words to force them into the framework.  Or at least that's how I feel :(
I may work on a sonnet next week- or just right whatever I want.  We'll see how I feel and how much time I have.
Also, you may notice that the two seashell poems are really similar.  That was a) to see how form affected what I write and b) because the villanelle started as an idea from something I got for my moms birthday, but the finish product was not something she would super enjoy.  So yes, I know they are super similar.  Also, I spent so much time on that Villanelle, I wanted to get a little more out of all that brain teasing.

I do like Lemon, however.  That was less about structure, and more about a challange.  My dad challanged me to a write off.  We both had to write an 'Ode to a Lemon,' inspired by the poem by Pablo Neruda.   I've included both my poem, and the original.  So enjoy!  Have a great week:)



Seashell Villanelle
And she said: when we are apart you'll hear
Echoes of music and rhythms of wave
My song in a shell, held close to your ear.

She was the sea, but all tides disappear
Even gold sun the moon's call can not stave
And she said: when we are apart you'll hear

Soul in body, sound in shelly veneer
This fragile vessel her memories save
My song in a shell, held close to your ear.

From happier pasts, sounds slowly appear
Cities of memories, coral enclave
And she said: when we are apart you'll hear

Voices singing to the tune of a tear
Listen still after I’m gone to the grave
My song in a shell, held close to your ear

Ocean’s ghost in a shell- echoes, my dear
Remembrance held in trivial cave
And she said: when we are apart you'll hear
My song in a shell, held close to your ear


Sea Shell Memories
Singing sweet secrets of coral enclaves,
Winding through opalescent tunnels-
The sounding of sea, the whip of the wind
Old waves crash in whispering caves

Dancing through the corridors of my mind
Feet beet a cadence, laughter ringing chimes
Like the tune that turns inside my head
Old whispers of you in remembrance unwind

And even when we are apart I'll hear
Echos of you on empty paths-
Heart beats that create
Your song in a shell, held close to my ear.

Lemon

between the seas of orange and green

under the glare of flourescent sun

summer sits yellow on moldering shelves

pinching cheeks and twisting tongues

refreshing tang of floridian trees

summer slips slow through parched lips

sliced and diced; squeezed and parted

sprig of mint and dash of gin

summer floats soft on liquid skies

cleaning counters, polishing chairs

astringent perfume stings my hands

summer smells heavy in the hot air

between the dunes of sandy white

under the glow of kitchen sunlight

summer sits in the palm of my hand.

Ode to a Lemon

Pablo Neruda

Out of lemon flowers
loosed
on the moonlight, love's
lashed and insatiable
essences,
sodden with fragrance,
the lemon tree's yellow
emerges,

the lemons
move down
from the tree's planetarium

Delicate merchandise!
The harbors are big with it-
bazaars
for the light and the
barbarous gold.
We open
the halves
of a miracle,
and a clotting of acids
brims
into the starry
divisions:
creation's
original juices,
irreducible, changeless,
alive:
so the freshness lives on
in a lemon,
in the sweet-smelling house of the rind,
the proportions, arcane and acerb.

Cutting the lemon
the knife
leaves a little cathedral:
alcoves unguessed by the eye
that open acidulous glass
to the light; topazes
riding the droplets,
altars,
aromatic facades.

So, while the hand
holds the cut of the lemon,
half a world
on a trencher,
the gold of the universe
wells
to your touch:
a cup yellow
with miracles,
a breast and a nipple
perfuming the earth;
a flashing made fruitage,
the diminutive fire of a planet.