That classic villanelle is hard to master;
alternate lines can drive me up the wall
(but avant-garde absurdity drives faster).

I could just dash off some Haiku disaster,
but that would never hold you in its thrall.
Authentic villanelle is hard to master.

To learn new forms, sometimes all we can muster
is try it out and write; obey our call
to follow, bleating, some poetic pastor

to greener lyric landscapes—or a vaster
universe of verse in which to scrawl.
Authentic villanelle is hard to master.

Breaking the lyric flask of alabaster,
like the Magdalene's perfume, we give our all,
disciples of true poetry, to our Master.

Keeping pace, the muse now urges: faster
I'm sweating now, and headed for a fall . . .
That classic villanelle is hard to master.
I hope to learn from Bishop—yet run past her.