poemeleon

As a poet who writes mostly in free verse, I enjoy the game aspect of creating villanelles, and the way they both constrain and liberate by half-writing themselves once one has the germinal couplet (however much it gets adjusted in the process of writing). I find that if I’m on a villanelle jag, the world sometimes cooperates by offering up villanelle-able subjects. Such was the case with “HMOgenized,” some of whose lines are adapted from a list of wall-posted instructions I rapidly recorded--while waiting at the nurse’s station to have my blood pressure taken at my (not to be mentioned here) HMO--to the consternation of the nurse. I appreciate the variety of tones this restrictive form can take, as here, with the slightly more regular “Agnostic Psalm” which is considerably graver than “HMOgenized,” if, I hope, still not stiff.

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Agnostic Psalm

I praise the Silence for his silent grace
while knives all rest contented in their racks.
I walk on tiptoe past my numbered days.

No midnight phone call bursts my dreams’ green haze,
my children safely skip the sidewalk's cracks.
I praise the Silence for his silent grace.

I've no effects, so far, from gamma rays,
my dad's heart has bypassed the speeding facts.
I walk on tiptoe past my numbered days.

Dive for the ground when Gorgon drive-bys gaze,
don't breathe beneath the neon cataract,
and praise the Silence for his silent grace!

Mild kids grin down from freeway overlays,
my love comes smiling from the school of knocks.
I walk on tiptoe past my numbered days.

In valley-of-the-shadow passageways,
no-One's too close for comfort at my back.
I praise the Silence for his silent grace
and walk on tiptoe past my numbered days.

Previously published in the Wilshire Review.

HMOgenized

Make eye contact with the patient. Smile!
Use his or her name. Courteously repeat.
Practice your most effective listening skills.

Please don’t first-name me. I’m no little child,
but older than you, with an advanced degree.
Make eye contact with the patient. Smile!

I’m sneaking a look at my own thick file.
“Asks too many questions. Obstreperous.” Me?
Practice your most effective listening skills.

“The test was negative,” says doc-no-frills.
“But I still have symptoms.” Too bad. Finis.
Make eye contact with the patient. Smile!

Aching in more than one body part? File it!
You’ve exactly six minutes--CEO decree.
Practice your most effective listening skills.

Reassure those patients who are fearful:
“Dr. (BLANK) will see to your problem--he’s great!”
Make eye contact with the patient. Smile!
Practice your most effective listening skills.

_________________

Judy Kronenfeld is the author of a book and two chapbooks of poetry, the most recent being Ghost Nurseries (Finishing Line, 2005), as well as a book on Shakespeare, King Lear and the Naked Truth (Duke, 1998). Recent anthology appearances include Red, White & Blues: Poets on the Promise of America (Iowa, 2004), Regrets Only: Contemporary Poets on the Theme of Regret (Little Pear Press, 2006), and Blue Arc West: An Anthology of California Poets (Tebot Bach, 2006). Her poems, as well as the occasional short story and personal essay, have appeared in numerous print and online journals; recent poem credits include DMQReview (Disquieting Muses Quarterly), Spoon River Poetry Review, Free Lunch, Pebble Lake Review, Poetry International, Barnwood, and New Verse News.