Poles apart

Poles apart

The challenge today is to write a poem that incorporates at least one of the following:
- the villanelle form
- lines taken from an outside text
- phrases that oppose each other in some way.

I've always fancied trying the villanelle.  It's a complicated structure composed of 5 x 3 line stanzas plus a 4 line stanza,  where the first and third line of the first stanza repeat as the last line of the following 4 stanzas, and form the last two lines of the final quatrain.  Still following?!

I've made it slightly easier for myself by combining the other suggestions by choosing two opposing slogans used during the 2016 referendum on EU membership. Sorry,  I know I said I was fed up of Brexit.


We're Stronger In,
It's always been said the sum is greater than its parts,  but
You Want Your Country Back.

The papers are full of it,  the TV news has carried little else for months
At risk our jobs,  food shortages,  stockpiled medicines,
We're stronger in.

Those sneaky Europeans have taken one twelfth of our jobs
Harvest our crops, serve us beer, care for our sick,  pay their taxes,  but
You want your country back.

The young are rageing against the old
They don't want to go back to a golden age,  the future's bright enough
We're stronger in.

Our needy regions will once more go cap in hand
When EU development funds dry up. Never mind,
You want your country back.

Our nation's split,  both sides deadlocked behind red lines,
We must look like such a shambles.
We're stronger in,  and although we never gave it up,
You want our country back.



© Copyright 2019. Chris Auger. All Rights Reserved

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