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?