Hi there, dear amphibians of a virtual garden, here is Björn, a quite recent tadpole, unaware of consequences of signing up I got an email from the renowned and most skilled poet Hedgewitch. I had missed this slight drawback from signing up to be a toad, but at least one of you will have to expect an email from me the next few days. As many of you might have noticed I share the rare interest of actually write poem to form and meter.
The challenge was fairly straightforward: to take a piece of free-verse of mine that I think could gain from being elaborated to a form poetry such as a pantoum, sonnet, villanelle or terza rima. Often I write my form poetry because they help me get inspired with the progression of the poem, the rhymes for instance help me to push the story ahead (a little bit like found poetry). On the other hand when I write free verse I’m often inspired to start with, so form come secondary. Therefore this was more of challenge than I thought to start with.
A while ago Marian wrote a prompt on the music of David Hidalgo. I saw some of the music as a kind of death-dance where the dawn was the end, and I used a refrain there “this night of sanguine hips” and thought that this would work in a villanelle. I thought I wanted to keep the dance in my poem so I went with tetrameter instead of pentameter to make it more in line with the origin of the rural dances that are supposedly the origin of the villanelle. I have reworked this a lot more than I usually do with my form poetry but I hope it works for you.
This glowing night of sanguine hips
In glowing nights of sanguine hips,
we shed our last maracas tears;
and sway away when sun has slipped.
From burning cheeks, mascara drips,
but doom of dawn is not yet near,
this glowing night of sanguine hips.
With graveyard dust on blood-filled lips,
we’re dancing with the utmost care;
and sway away when sun has slipped.
We’re blessed by songs in sooty scripts
within this shroud the light is dear,
in glowing nights of sanguine hips.
Cause 6 feet under, worms will grip
our corazon of moonlit years.
We sway away when sun has slipped.
You gently let your eyelids zip,
to quench the dread of concrete fears.
Our final night of sanguine hips,
sashay below when sun has slipped.