Villanelles by Giselle Ates

Villanelles are a 19-line French poetry form involving a serious subject

described in iambic pentameter and containing two repeating lines and two repeating rhymes. 

 

 

 

“I Will Listen”

(by Giselle Ates on May 15, 2015)

 

Please speak to me Lord and I will listen

I worship you and seek your perfect will

While I watch your ocean waters glisten

 

Gaining your wisdom is my main mission

I quiet my mind and force myself still

Please speak to me Lord and I will listen

 

With each crashing wave, Lord, I petition

Emptying this vessel for you to fill

While I watch your ocean waters glisten

 

Each roaring wave brings a revelation

That provides peace or knowledge or a thrill

Please speak to me Lord and I will listen

 

I submit to you, my Great Physician

And my heart, mind, soul, and body, you heal

While I watch your ocean waters glisten

 

Your heavenly waves provide direction

I worship you and seek your perfect will

Please speak to me Lord and I will listen

While I watch your ocean waters glisten

 

 

 

“The Mending of Her Soul”

(by Giselle Ates, April 2013)

 

Into a place of darkness she retreats

To heal the wounds of which she cannot speak

Until the mending of her soul completes

 

Quietly in this obscure place she weeps

Wiping silent tears that from her eyes leak

Into a place of darkness she retreats

 

Fighting sadness that she sometimes defeats

Struggling against sorrow she becomes weak

Until the mending of her soul completes

 

Battling against real and false deceits

Confronting the lies, the truth she does seek

Into a place of darkness she retreats

 

Until deceptions and grief she deletes

Until anger she finally makes meek

Until the mending of her soul completes

 

With love and laughter, this pain she unseats

To heal the wounds of which she cannot speak

Into a place of darkness she retreats

Until the mending of her soul completes

 

 

“Is there no Solution except a Hearse?”

(by Giselle Ates, April 2013)

 

What was once a blessing is now a curse

bringing me and those I love misery.

Is there no solution except a hearse?

 

Do not misinterpret this cryptic verse—

our enslavement causes us agony.

What was once a blessing is now a curse.

 

With suicide and murder, I’m adverse

despite the anguish caused by trickery.

Is there no solution except a hearse?

 

From this coffin, for freedom we do thirst

finding this containment such villainy.

What was once a blessing is now a curse.

 

Our love we freely give—and from the first—

long before this imprisoning cruelty.

Is there no solution except a hearse?

 

Please free our captured souls before they burst.

Repent from your controlling treachery.

What was once a blessing is now a curse.

Is there no solution except a hearse?