poemranker ::Orange Hills (Villanelle) by Moss

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Free verse № 25862

Orange Hills (Villanelle)

Member since 2002 · Posted 19 Nov 2002 · 10 comments

It was the bottom of the night when we found your orange hills and laid ourselves beneath them. Undressed the sky of its red and the ground of its kill. The time became a measurement of the bodies that we filled. Skin grating against flesh, salvaged in our womb of grass, we found your orange hills. And there I waited anxiously for the air to still, imagining the laughter we had yet to confess. We were naked???me of my skin, the ground of its kill, but you, you were upright, and with a shrill, taut mouth addressed the sky, the ground???all that you had killed, you told them of my aging, and my infected will. How at night I left, alone, to walk among your orange hills. Then you said if I return to you, and know you still, there will be another body, a broken limb for you to press against the bottom of the night, but you will see no orange hills. There'll be no sky made unred, no ground left unkilled.

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10 comments

[6] Nicholas Jones 20-Nov-02/1:34 AM Reply
I'm unconvinced this is actually a villanelle, but then I'm an incorrigible pedant. It is pretty good, though; the first stanza is by far the best. Have you been reading the great Dylan? He was fond of his womb images.
[n/a] <~> 20-Nov-02/7:53 AM Reply
if only there were a 'near-vilanelle' option. i am disappointed you call it one and do not deliver. i'll come back and reread when less jaded.
[3] god'swife 20-Nov-02/8:56 AM Reply
I don't like this poem but I think it qualifies. Five tercets, a final ququatrain and two rhymes.
[n/a] <~> › god'swife 20-Nov-02/9:01 AM Reply
yes. that part qualifies. but the essence of the vilanelle is the repeated lines over the event of the peom. see 'do not go gentle into that good night':
http://www.poets.org/poems/poems.cfm?prmID=1159
[n/a] <~> › <~> 20-Nov-02/9:02 AM Reply
you can even hear him read it on this site.
see that nicholas jones?
get a welshie to read it for you! and post it!
[n/a] Moss › <~> 20-Nov-02/7:10 PM Reply
I've read that poem, and Dylan Thomas sticks to the form pretty tightly, but he, too, makes minor changes in some of the repeated lines, doesn't he? Some poets write what they call vilanelles and they don't even rhyme; it covers a broad spectrum. People write sonnets now with 18 lines. The form is a jumping off point. This was my first attempt in class this semester, and I think I stuck to it pretty closely.
[n/a] <~> › Moss 20-Nov-02/7:18 PM Reply
yes. he does. i bring my own baggage to the reading of this. which is why i have not commented further, or voted on it yet. i read it and i like it, but iwanted it to be more strict and still woo me. and it seems to me that you could accomplish that. so i'll sit for a spell, and come back when i am...even.
[n/a] Bachus 20-Nov-02/12:16 PM Reply
i watched my gradfather die of parkinson's disease, and it was funnier than any sitcom on the air at the time..what is time? something that obviously scares the shit out of you...now we're even, because the thought of you teaching old people creative writing when you can barely grasp that notion let alone the meaning.. scares the piss out of me, but just for a second. nice orange hill.
[n/a] Moss › Bachus 21-Nov-02/12:17 AM Reply
What notion...time? What are you talking about, and what does it have to do with Parkinson's disease? Are you trying to sound clever, or just condescending?
[n/a] -=SeTTle=- › Moss 24-Nov-02/8:25 PM Reply
TEACHER TEACHER GIMME THE NEWS I GOTTA BAD CASE OF LOVING YOU. AND I'M GAY.