The Villanelle

All art springs from the fear that we’ll be dead
And no one will remember. We were here –
A verse that haunts, and echoes in your head.

And as each stares through darkness in his bed
The shifting drapes just amplify his fear
All art springs from the fear that we’ll be dead.

But sex and life, they make existence red
And joyous bright and surely nowhere near
A verse that haunts and echoes in your head.

But sex and life require death, embed
Themselves with him. Their dancing makes it clear
All art springs from the fear that we’ll be dead.

These thoughts, they are the artist’s wine and bread,
The darkness feeds him the one thing that’s dear:
A verse that haunts and echoes in your head.

The poet writes all that he wished he’d said
To whom he loves and who he’ll always hear:
All art springs from the fear that we’ll be dead,
A verse that haunts, and echoes in your head.