Creative Traditional:

[Kit Carson]

The greatest one of all, tells one to rage
I keep that in my mind all of the time
Only pretending to be a great sage
~
As I go about earning daily wage
While secretly playing with words of rhyme
The greatest one of all, tells one to rage
~
There must be a way to escape the cage
Just slightly louder than the loudest mime
Only pretending to be a great sage
~
Telling clever tales of a long ago age
Bottle of tequila and wedge of lime
The greatest one of all, tells one to rage
~
And back when my hair was still sort of beige
So salty…could taste the brine in my prime
Only pretending to be a great sage
~
With a ruler of time that has no gauge
I always knew the truth very sublime
The greatest one of all, tells one to rage
Only pretending to be a great sage
~
Mike Carson
10-23-2007

[JolieH]

Kit,

Nice villanelle,
You’re good at working with poetic forms. The rhyme scheme gives this a nice flow.
The content, hmm. I hope you aren't having words with your wife. If so, I hope you've made up... It's an awful feeling in the gut to be upset with your sweetheart.

[Kit Carson]

Thank you Jolie and no this is about a villanelle. About the villanelle that is regarded as the greatest. "Do Not Go Gently Into That Good Night" by Dylan Thomas. It is poetry like this, when shown to young poetry students, that makes you feel like you are writing "Jack and Jill" or something akin. So everything else flows from that knowledge that what you write will never be the greatest. Is there an artist alive that could stare at an empty canvass and say with a straight face, "I'm going to paint a better painting than Mona Lisa?" Can anyone write a better villanelle than the best ever written? The answer is yes, of course, because Dylan Thomas did it...think about that one...it has been done before, so it can be done again. Likely...no, but we write on, don't we..."only pretending to be a great sage."