From The Look in Her Eyes, I Knew – A Villanelle
From the look in her eyes, I knew
She was riding to meet a guy.
But is any of this even true?
There’s no end to what I’ll construe
From a face as it flashes by.
From the look in her eyes, I knew,
Though (her flushed cheeks were another clue),
Love was pedaling in her thigh…
But is any of this even true?
Is it not just the the thought of two
Now apart? I would nearly die
From the look in her eyes I knew
Then, when she knew it too
In the pull of my disrobed eye…
But is any of this even true?
And now, is it mere fancy to
Divine she too soon will cry
From the look in her eyes I knew?
But is any of this even true?
(I’m not a poet, but I like word games. A villanelle is a fixed verse poetic form of nineteen lines with two rhymes throughout, consisting of five tercets and a quatrain, with the first and third lines of the opening tercet recurring alternately at the end of the other tercets and with both repeated at the close of the concluding quatrain.)
julian peters comics 
Well, here’s my offering on the subject, in French…
La villanelle d’amour,
Romantique ou sensuelle,
Se déclame au petit jour.
D’un vers gai, rythmé, très court,
Elle vole à tire d’aile,
La villanelle d’amour.
Texte courtois, jamais lourd,
Qu’un homme écrit à sa belle,
Se déclame au petit jour.
Elle volète alentour,
Légère comme une oiselle,
La villanelle d’amour.
Sans trompettes ni tambour,
La chantante villanelle
Se déclame au petit jour.
Côté jardin, côté cour,
Pour un cœur que l’on appelle,
La villanelle d’amour
Se déclame au petit jour.
Do you like it?
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It’s lovely. It seems like something François I might have composed at Fontainebleau for one of his amourettes.
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Happy you like it. I’m working on another one, as well as on various versions of sonnets (Elizabethan, French, reversed, polar, 15 lines… ). The sonnet has so many different constructions!
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I, on the other hand, am a poet, and greatly appreciated your easy-to-understand definition and prowess. Although, being only on two rhymes, the idea appears simple, it is often quite challenging to find enough words rhyming together to make an interesting, readable poem!
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Looking forward to reading what you come up with! Feel free to post it here.
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Thanks to your post, I have been reading up on the villanelle, which I had always assumed to be French, since it was quite common and well-regarded in France for a long time, although it has fallen from grace in these modern times. It’s Italian though, isn’t it, like so many other beautiful poetic forms: the sonnet, the terza rima, both of which are superb and open to so many interpretations!
Since you are fluent in both languages, do you know of a good translation of the Divine Comedy, by Dante Alighieri? I’d love to read it!
As for my own poetry, most of it is classically written, in French, or free verse in English.
At present, I am waiting for the final illustrations for a manuscript I just finished, the drawing of which has been entrusted to a very talented young woman. Her studies for the book were stupendous! When the final artwork is back, the manuscript, which is a schoolyear written up in classical French poetry, is going off to find a publisher… Wait and see!
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Funny game indeed… I immediately wanted to have a try at it 😉
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