Monstrous Villanelle

Allison Blevins, Dustin Brookshire, & Kristiane Weeks-Rogers

a contoured villanelle using Denise Duhamel’s “Villainous Villanelle” 

Tell me, mister, do you have a clear conscience
as you listen to the gravel crunch under your shoes?
Does the earth’s pull and sway makes you nauseous?

You’re trash, a fuck up whose desire is monstrous,
mouth tallies moments stolen with the burn of booze,  bodies—naked and wanting—behind you. Your conscience,

I can’t say those words and not laugh. You’re obnoxious
sense of a moral compass—a bill left unpaid and overdue
a sea swelling a small boat, a traveling virus—nauseous.

You see every lover in your life as an object or province,
catalog them for use, crown yourself the unmoved muse.
Tell me again about your beautiful conscience—

how chaos, lust, and greed are your constant
and still you call it order, painted red-line of rules
bends my body, tears at my hair. I’m nauseous,

dizzy and confused, as if I took a blow to my noggin. 
Yet I swallow your greed, herbal and bittersweet as Green Chartreuse,
into the swirling waters of my subconscious. 
Why do I love you when your actions leave me nauseous?

Dreaming Rich Villanelle

Dustin Brookshire, Denise Duhamel, & Beth Gylys

            a contoured villanelle using Julie Kane’s “Maple Leaf Bar”

Sometimes I'm hyper-aware of my place
on the sheet music of life, making an elegant tune
convinced that I must play or be played

at cocktail parties in Palm Springs or the Cape
reveling in all the jealous stares directed at my jewels.
Sometimes I’m hyper-aware of their my place,

the blocking, hitting my mark as I upstage onstage, sashaying and fluttering throughout the room— my natural state: to play and not be played

I’m fashion forward, often fashionably late, drinking too much. So what if I often puked! I’ve zero interest in hanging out with saints

unless they're dressed in Saint Laurent. Face  painted with the latest Dior collection—loop  
me in! If you’re hot and rich, I’m game to play

in the Turks and Caicos—or Turks and cra-
zy once we're pouring Pol Roger Vintage Brut. You
and I will cease to care about where or what place
we dock the yacht where we must play or be played. 

Zero Art Villanelle

Dustin Brookshire, Denise Duhamel, & Beth Gylys

 a contoured villanelle using Elizabeth Bishop's "One Art"

The art of gaslighting isn't hard to master. Dimwit politicians with criminal intent  poo-poo that we're heading towards disaster,

even though they vote for chaos and fluster  then poo on us, so many tax dollars badly spent to prove that our president-in-thief is master

of destruction, cutting Medicaid funding, he's faster than any other liar to claim That's not what I meant, a lame attempt to distract from pending disaster

of lost coverage and hospital closures. It’s his way or
a lawsuit. Who knows where the Epstein files went? 
Maybe stashed in a Mar-a-lago bathroom? The master

 of fake news, king of deceit, lover of redaction vaster  than his ass. When asked, he couldn't name one continent— a self-described stable genius, what a disaster.

He waves off the Epstein birthday card with a gesture. Not my signature though the evidence is evident— for lies, grift, and blame, he is master of flaming torches, a master of disaster.