A villanelle (also known as villanesque) is a nineteen-line poetic form consisting of five tercets followed by a quatrain. There are two refrains and two repeating rhymes, with the first and third line of the first tercet repeated alternately until the last stanza, which includes both repeated lines. The villanelle is an example of a fixed verse form. The word derives from Latin, then Italian, and is related to the initial subject of the form being the pastoral.

When I wrote the following poem, I took the villanelle structural rules but then turned the subject matter on its head. You judge whether my attempt was successful or not.

Separate Movements

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As the mind moves the body it’s moved by the soul

Toward its destiny at the end of life,

For each knows an instinctively separate role.

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Ev’ryone’s existence is sometimes somewhat droll;

No one else is to blame if there’s any strife:

As the mind moves the body it’s moved by the soul.

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At the beginning of time Man started with no goal

Until he was united with a warm wife,

For each knows an instinctively separate role.

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He, who thinks he can hide, puts his head in a hole,

Like Macbeth, confronted by the Earl of Fife:

As the mind moves the body it’s moved by the soul.

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Imagine going through life as blind as a mole

Until some woman cuts it short with a knife,

For each knows an instinctively separate role.

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The proverbial, isolated ten-foot Pole

Is kept at a distance from the rest of life:

As the mind moves the body it’s moved by the soul,

For each knows an instinctively separate role.