ManicDDaily

Believe it or not, I have found, on this blog’s “stats,” that there are almost as many people interested in villanelles as in Robert Pattinson.  (Well, maybe not almost as many.)  Still, there is an interest.

This is fortunate for me as the villanelle form is one that I really like.  (Check out my other posts on this subject, if you would like to read explanations of the villanelle form and suggestions about how to write them.  Check these out especially if you also like Magnolia Bakery’s Banana Pudding.)

Today, I’m posting the villanelle, “The Nap,” because it it feels to me to have an autumnal aspect–after the fall, as it were.  (I was in upstate in New York when I wrote it, when the leaves were fallen, brown, and slowly drying out.)

To all those who are afraid to try writing a villanelle–you’ll see that  I cheated!  I modified the repeating lines;  in other words, I gave priority to meaning over manneristic form.   (Ha ha!)

Reading suggestion:  line breaks, in my poems at least, are not intended to denote pauses, unless there is also a specific punctuation break, such as comma or period.

Thanks as always for reading this blog.  I very much appreciate your sympathetic interest and time.  Comments are also always welcome.  Thanks again.

The Nap

Side by side, we slid to a dry, still, place.
It was not a woeful drought of age or dust,
the softer dryness of a tear-trailed face.

We never used to find this quiet space.
Any closeness quickly clambered into lust.
But side by side, we slid to a dry, still, place

where hands touched in a sweat-free interlace,
fatigue overwhelming pheromone fuss
with the softer dryness of a tear-trailed face.

Some other time we’d find that moist embrace
where pleasure mounts to such synaptic bust
I find myself side-sliding to a place

as blank as emptied well, as capsized chase.
(My brain reacts so badly to heart’s trust,
the softer dryness of a tear-trailed face.)

But today, we two, exhausted by the pace
of time and life and words like ‘should’ and ‘must’,
side by side, slid to a dry, still, place,
the softer dryness of a tear-trailed face.

I am submitting this post into the Gooseberry Garden’s Poetry Picnic, with the theme of love and lost love.

All rights reserved, Karin Gustafson.

Also check out 1 Mississippi by Karin Gustafson on Amazon.

This entry was posted on November 22, 2009 at 3:51 pm and is filed under poetry, Uncategorized, villanelle. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments.

Tags: formal poetry, Karin Gustafson, Love Poem, manicddaily, poetry, Robert Pattinson, The Nap, villanelle