Villanelles III

These are villanelles by Michael R. Burch and and villanelle-like poems... Villanelle: Trump’s Retribution Resolution by Michael R. Burch My New Year’s resolution? I require your money and votes, for *you* are *my* retribution. May I offer you dark-skinned scapegoats and bigger and deeper moats as part of my sweet resolution? Please consider a YUGE contribution, a mountain of lovely C-notes, for *you* are *my* retribution. Revenge is our only solution, since my critics are weasels and stoats. Come, second my sweet resolution! The New Year’s no time for dilution of the anger of victimized GOATs, when *you* are *my* retribution. Forget the damned Constitution! To dictators “ideals” are footnotes. My New Year’s resolution? *You* are *my* retribution. I may have invented a new poetic form, the “trinelle” or “triplenelle.” Villanelle/Trinelle: Why I Left the Right by Michael R. Burch I was a Reagan Republican in my youth but quickly “left” the GOP when I grokked its inherent racism, intolerance and retreat into the Dark Ages. I fell in with the troops, but it didn’t last long: I’m not one to march to a klanging gong. “Right is wrong” became my song. I’m not one to march to a klanging gong with parrots all singing the same strange song. I fell in with the bloops, but it didn’t last long. These parrots all singing the same strange song, with no discernment between right and wrong? “Right is wrong” became my song. With no discernment between right and wrong, the klan marched on in a white-robed throng. I fell in with the rubes, but it didn’t last long. The klan marched on in a white-robed throng, enraged by the sight of boys in sarongs. “Right is wrong” became my song. Enraged by the sight of boys in sarongs and girls with butch hairdos, the clan klanged its gongs. I fell in with the dupes, but it didn’t last long. “Right is wrong” became my song. Sinking by Michael R. Burch for Virginia Woolf Weigh me down with stones ... fill all the pockets of my gown ... I’m going down, mad as the world that can’t recover, to where even mermaids drown. Door Mouse by Michael R. Burch I’m sure it’s not good for my heart— the way it will jump-start when the mouse scoots the floor (I try to kill it with the door, never fast enough, or fling a haphazard shoe ... always too slow too) in the strangest zig-zaggedy fashion absurdly inconvenient for mashin’, till our hearts, each maniacally revvin’, make us both early candidates for heaven.