I write...

An essay on why I write... (Form: Villanelle)

I Write ...

My tongue trips while thoughts run free.
Pray fingers fly where mouth is dumb.
I'll let my pencil speak for me.

Played upon paper in harmony,
a symphony of what’s to come.
My tongue trips while thoughts run free.

Phrases lacking ordered symmetry
re-sketched in pastel shades of plum.
I'll let my pencil speak for me.

Words lie scattered like debris
to ready verse in mind succumb.
My tongue trips while thoughts run free.

For permanence, must patience be
No mark unkind in total sum.
I'll let my pencil speak for me.

E’re its been in my history,
never cake but always crumb.
My tongue trips while thoughts run free.
I'll let my pencil speak for me.


Notes It's my attempt at a Villanelle in (mostly ) iambic tetrameter. A villanelle is a poetic form which entered English-language poetry in the 1800s from the imitation of French models. A villanelle has only two rhyme sounds. The first and third lines of the first stanza are rhyming refrains that alternate as the third line in each successive stanza and form a couplet at the close of the 19 line poem.