The Cure: NaPoWriMo 2019, Day 5

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Heart 3


The Cure

That sadness in your heart?
You told me once that she had
kissed it all away.

But still I could detect,
once she was gone, the echo of
that sadness in your heart.

We took your sad past to the ocean
where I hoped the waves had
kissed it all away.

Yet, like a bitter tide, it returned
and I could see again
that sadness in your heart.

I took your sad past to the mountain,
where once again I hoped the wind and sun had
kissed it all away,

and when, on our descent,
I feared the reappearance of
that sadness in your heart? I
kissed it all away.

 

 

The NaPoWriMo prompt today was to write a villanelle that contained at least two of three other components.  Here is the vital information concerning that prompt:

the villanelle. The classic villanelle has five three-line stanzas followed by a final, four-line stanza. The first and third lines of the first stanza alternately repeat as the last lines of the following three-line stanzas, before being used as the last two lines of the final quatrain. And to make it an even more virtuoso performance, Dargan’s alternating lines, besides being taken from songs, express “opposing” ideas, with one being about sleeping, and the other waking.

Following Dargan’s lead, today we’d like to challenge you to write a poem that incorporates at least one of the following: (1) the villanelle form, (2) lines taken from an outside text, and/or (3) phrases that oppose each other in some way. If you can use two elements, great – and if you can do all three, wow! (I did all three. The opposing line “There’s a sadness in my heart” is the title of a song recorded by Legs and “kissed it all away” is a song title from the album “The Distance Between Two Truths” recorded by Mark Sholtez.)

20 thoughts on “The Cure: NaPoWriMo 2019, Day 5”

  1. krstaten's avatarkrstaten

    The way the poem centers around the theme of the sadness recurring makes it a really perfect story to tell via the villanelle in particular with its recurring lines. This is lovely. =)

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      1. krstaten's avatarkrstaten

        Me neither! I’ve tried attempting villanelles so many times in the past and I can never quite get the tone I want. Ideally I’d like to create something where the repetition becomes almost haunting, as in “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night,” but I’ve never managed to pull it off.

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