Funeral 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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I will have no dirges sung at my funeral
No tear-jerking poems are to be recited,
Closed casket, I’m reposing in the natural.

Flowers I’ll appreciate your being...

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The family ties are frayed by a festering wound
The siblings are fighting over their parent’s will,
The oldest brother a younger sister has impugned.

As fighting continued,...

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Reflected universe spawned by desire
Beauteous dance of playful innocence 
In truth, we are That, for which we aspire

Endless seeking and craving, heart afire
Pathetic is addictive...

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Villanelle : Never political but spiritual the ancient Indo-Chinese pilgrim ties

       In Memory of the late pathologist (and amateur...

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Golden swaying heads of the amber wavesthe sunshine sweetly upon the wheat fields’Tares are standing taller in their own graves     ...

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My cloak as been removed, my invincibility laid bare.  
My life clock is in overdrive is this my time to breath my last fresh...

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When the moon is blocked by gray clouds,
A lone woman visits the graves,
She wears a black dress like a shroud.

She speaks, but her words are...

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The Mirror

I met myself today, not that many years away.
A most arresting sight; it filled me full of fright:
My mind in disarray, all my senses,...

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I guess everything I did or do is not good enough for you,
This Mr Nice guy is not working out to your standards isn't it...

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His family pretended not to cry 
But both his sisters had no heart to spare; 
They said they loved him, yet it was a lie....

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The world did wear you down and on you passed.
Nightmares of young did press your eyes to close,
But God has gathered you and him at...

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I am off work to buy a suit today. 
For I have a funeral to soon attend.
I think a black suit or maybe a gray.

I...

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See her through the minds eye 
Repetitious procrastination in the end
She wanders into dreams to say goodbye

Figment of the imagination, personified lie
While mourning her death,...

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