POEM STARTER
Write a villanelle about something that has been abandoned.
The villanelle is a type of poem characterised by its repeating lines and ABA rhyme scheme which create a lyrical effect. There are a number of other rules for a full villanelle if you wish to incorporate them.
Villanelle
At night I am visited by not three ghosts but many
The older I get, the more gather before me.
Why won’t these ghosts stay in their graves?
My dreams appear first; they arrive grandly
As if driven in by hearse.
You’ve left us so long ago, they say so fondly.
They carry a mirror and in it I must gaze
Youth wasted on the young, it says.
Chasing rainbows leading nowhere.
I see the tiny crow prints around my eyes
“Mirror,” I say, “j’accuse! Such lies!”
The mirror says nothing, it’s just me in there.
I awaken and the shadows disperse
The spirits of the once-were are now not;
I sob in my pillow for that which is gone —
Why won’t these ghosts stay in their graves?
