Saturday, March 12, 2011

A Devotional

Five Tercets and a quatrain,
Hold faith close at any cost,
All sins washed, purity regained,

A man, blistering in pain,
Seeking answers for all he’s lost,
Five Tercets and a quatrain,

When all seems lost, no hope to gain,
All circuits get distorted, become crossed,
All sins washed, purity regained,

With blood reacting through the veins,
Sanity tested, words at a loss
Five Tercets and a quatrain,

In unsuspected hours out pours the loudest of refrains,
At the point of final exhaust,
All sins washed, purity regained,

In faith pasts erase while the future’s reclaimed              
Pushed as far as you can go, finally the message comes across,
Five Tercets and a quatrain,
All sins washed, purity regained


Originally posted back in March of 2011, this Villanelle is the only pure villanelle I've ever posted online.  The form had, at one point been a favorite of mine, and while I have quite a bit of these stored away into folders and notebooks, I, for whatever reason, never did get around to posting them to any of my sites.  I was going to enter one of these into blogger tonight, but after rereading this one, I realized that this particular villanelle is the one I wanted to share (again).

Sam Peralta is paying tribute to Dylan Thomas in Form-For All.  The article is excellent and I urge everyone to stop on over to D'Verse and even if they don't decide to partake in sharing a Villanelle of their own or Reading those linked up by the ultra-talented community that is D'verse, they should not want to miss reading this article, it's that good.

8 comments:

  1. ha...i like the inclusion of the form within the verse, the five tercets and...as for me writing is often a part of that road to absolution of what ever i am going through...and in the unsuspecting hours...lol...whenever the muse strikes...well played sir...

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  2. "All sins washed purity regained" - those words wash through this poem and give the answers sought.

    Love "Five Tercets and a quatrain." Quite a struggle to accomplish...but you achieved well indeed.

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  3. A man, blistering in pain,
    Seeking answers for all he’s lost....there's deep emotions in this, woven into five Tercets and a quatrain...sometimes i find it even easier to express emotions in a strict form than in free verse, maybe the form gives sth. like a safe frame.not quite sure...

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  4. a clear meditation on the process of writing this form

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  5. I am super impressed that you managed to encapsulate loss, which the form embraces, and then magically transform it to hope and forward motion, which the form resists. I am thinking it is the combination of the abstract/neutral 'five tercets and a quatrain' that allows you the freedom but one way or another it is quite the feat!

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  6. A good pic for the share, Fred. Enjoyed the refrain lines much, and messaging is clear and strong.

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  7. This is the first self-referential villanelle I've encountered, and it balances this existentialism with an expressionism that at times can be intense. Well-wrought.

    And thanks so much for your comments on the article. When you love a subject as much as I do, the words flow easily.

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