Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Villanelle

WRITER'S BLOCK

Today I’m suffering from writer’s block
My head is empty, no thoughts to think –
I only sit and listen to the clock.


Could it be I’ve run amuck?
Sanity teetering on the brink?
Today I’m suffering from writer’s block.

My head is heavy, filled with rock –
My eyes are staring – Can’t even blink
I only sit and listen to the clock.

I am confused. I’m in a fog.
Cleverness gone – I’m on the blink!
Today I’m suffering from writer’s block.

 
One deep breath, then I’ll take stock -
I know I must have thoughts to think –
I only sit and listen to the clock.


Where’s the key for my brain’s lock?
Where’s the fuel to help me think?
Today I’m suffering from writer’s block.
I only sit and listen to the clock.


Villanelle is a poetic form which entered English-language poetry in the 1800s from the imitation of French models. The word derives from the Italian villanella from Latin villanus (rustic). A villanelle has only two rhyme sounds. The first and third lines of the first stanza are rhyming refrains that alternate as the third line in each successive stanza and form a couplet at the close. A villanelle is nineteen lines long, consisting of five tercets and one concluding quatrain.