Villanelle

I don't think I've ever spent so much time writing a poem and debating where it's going. Villanelles are time-consuming as is and even more so when you have no idea what to do with it. So this became what I'd like to call "elicited cynicism," since I've found I have a pattern of writing some pretty cynical things when I don't have a theme in mind.


Innate is not Genius

You glide across this rough terrain
An afternoon, an afterthought.
Nothing could ever give you pain.

A simple star lighting the rain,
Recycling what a day had brought,
You glide across this rough terrain.

Caprices that we all maintain
Have been, by you, ventures unbought.
Nothing could ever give you pain.

So can your innocence explain—
With a lost meaning of “distraught”—
“You glide across this rough terrain?”

Simplicity has little gain
Without cognizance. That says not
“Nothing could ever give you pain.”

What sensory must be in wane,
And what a war must you have fought!
You glide across this rough terrain.
Nothing could ever give you pain.

Unpublished Material, ©2011 Cali Digre