Death Villanelle Poems

Villanelle: Remembering Not to Call
by Michael R. Burch

(a villanelle permitting mourning, for my mother, Christine Ena Burch)

The hardest thing of all,
after telling her everything,
is remembering...

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There’s a loneliness to her style, it’s true.
No sense of direction or means of success.
A cautionary tale for men with no clue. 

With icy tone...

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            Get Ready 

         Blind lane...

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Should you ask did I prepare
I believe I did, I’d say;
follow, and I’ll see you there.

I’ve had a life, have an heir,
left no debts for...

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Go gentle into life’s eve, death’s your friend,
Old age clamours to wear a new garment,
Rage not against death, death is not an end.

Should night be...

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our angel who sleeps so peacefully there
the foundation that supports all our lives
no momma' didn't die; she moved upstairs

hands that can play Amazing Grace with...

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Do not leave my carcass in the city,
Bury me whole by my grandfather’s side.
Let me repose far from the vanity.

The skyscrapers offer no charity,
and people...

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Singing songs of days of yore
Sailors, rovers, boats and hills
Listen O moonish Le Mar

In the dusky eve in meadows
Bells of temps and beechen shadows
Singing songs...

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DO NOT STAY GENTLE INTO THAT SHELL
Do not stay gentle into that shell,
Old age and death sails to snatch your day;
Wake up against the quenching...

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Villanelle the Foal

A gripping dance 
(12 men lift a rigid horse onto a pick-up truck).
I drive gate-wide

in the Volvo 
(Mummy, what are they doing with...

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What she might have been was hidden
Beneath self-destruction and depression
Despair so black it silenced light, war-ridden

Life without purpose, true love forbidden
Leaving darkest doubt lost in...

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Asian sun rises from the east
Rose seeds beneath the fence
For these petals are released

The perfumed smell of the rose lingers
The scene is hailed by the...

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Pump on, lest death may play its part,
with weight of sin or righteousness.
It is not ours, this beating heart.

Indeed, when schemes may fall apart,
though souls...

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After all, life is but a twisted tale,
Of trying blue; to weigh us, if model.
To find happy rest in all we travail...

Winnings, everyone continually tail,
Unleash...

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"What is life but a secession of preludes to unwritten words"
              ...

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