Wednesday, April 02, 2008

A Vicious Circle Villanelle

Once folly starts, it cannot ever cease.
The perpetrators of the crime command:
More dying, please! We can’t afford the peace!

Their troubled foreheads, wrinkles deeply crease
With consequences that they never planned.
Once folly starts, it cannot ever cease.

No logic brings intelligent release.
The unforced errors earn no reprimand.
More dying, please! We can’t afford the peace!

The mounting costs leave few sheep fit to fleece.
From where will come the profit contraband?
Once folly starts, it cannot ever cease.

Yet still, no answer to the sophist’s grease;
Those ancient fallacies the flames have fanned.
More dying, please! We can’t afford the peace!

The lies add up in thousands dead apiece.
The questions begged, both trivial and bland:
Once folly starts, it cannot ever cease?
More dying, please? We can’t afford the peace?


Michael Murry, “The Misfortune Teller,” Copyright © 2008

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2 Comments:

Blogger Unknown said...

All I can say is, your stuff should echo from a thousand street corners and cafes.

A misfortune-teller reading tour would be nice. (But not for you, maybe.) Thanks!

- Kathy B. aka katbarb

2:13 PM  
Blogger Michael Murry said...

Thanks, Kate. I'll try to keep up with the verse-format experiments. My brother the California high-school English teacher keeps digging up different challenges for me all the time. I can't even pronounce some of the ones he says he plans to send me next.

- Mike

3:11 PM  

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