VILLANELLE
A villanelle is a poem of nineteen lines, and which follows a strict form that consists of five tercets (three-line stanzas) followed by one quatrain (four-line stanza). Villanelles use a specific rhyme scheme of ABA for their tercets, and ABAA for the quatrain.

He Challenged Me To Write A Villanelle
He challenged me to write a Villanelle.
His attitude was crass. I said, “OK.”
He clearly doesn’t know me very well.

He wants to criticise me. I can tell.
I’m resentful of his manner and the way
he thinks I’ll fail to write a Villanelle.

And yet, I’m tough, I work in personnel.
I’ll write a Villanelle without delay.
I’m glad he doesn’t know me very well.

My brain is spinning like a carousel,
yet confident he’ll live to rue the day
he thought I couldn’t write a Villanelle.

Secure in my reluctance to rebel,
he’s watching smugly from his hideaway.
Thank God he doesn’t know me very well.

He’s blithely unaware of my farewell.
The papers will be through the door today.
He’ll know that I can write a Villanelle
and find he didn’t know me very well.