The Madness of Love

Missing Love

Writer's Cramp: Write a poem using "The Villanelle" about loneliness. The following is by Bianca:

The villanelle is a French form. It is not the easiest one to handle. Five triplets and a quatrain form the Villanelle. But don’t think that is it… no way! The Villanelle has a rhyme structure…

aba
aba
aba
aba
aba
abaa

But we are not there yet. . . The villanelle has repetons! Repetive lines, coming back in the following stanza, interlocking the poem in a unique way.
The first line in the first stanza comes back, as the third line of the second stanza and fourth stanza.
The third line of the first stanza comes back as the third line in the third stanza and the fifth stanza.

In the quatrain, the first line of the first stanza is the third one of the quatrain, and the third line of the first stanza comes back as the forth line of the quatrain.


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Missing Love

Loneliness presses darkly on my night,
Teasing my mind with my secret denial.
But when the moon looms, I cannot fight.

The truth presses in with solitude’s bite,
For a bedroom is bleak with love’s exile.
Loneliness presses darkly on my night.

In the daytime everything is all right.
Flowers bloom, birds twitter, and I smile,
But when the moon looms, I cannot fight.

Somewhere beyond the flickering firelight
Is a kind man I could love. But meanwhile,
Loneliness presses darkly on my night.

He need not be dashing, this valiant knight.
I curb my sighs and try to reconcile,
But when the moon looms, I cannot fight.

A book offers me a pleasant respite.
Its characters enthrall, but it’s all futile.
Loneliness presses darkly on my night,
And when the moon looms, I cannot fight.


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Note: In research on the Villanelle, I have discovered that some poets vary a line to strengthen their meaning. I have followed that variation in my last line with the substitution of and for but.