"Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light."— Dylan Thomas
A Vicious Circle Villanelle
(after the style of Dylan Thomas' "Do not go gentle into that good night")
Once folly starts, it cannot ever cease.
The perpetrators of the crime command:
More dying, please! We can’t afford the peace!
Their troubled foreheads, wrinkles deeply crease
With consequences that they never planned.
Once folly starts, it cannot ever cease.
No logic brings intelligent release.
The unforced errors earn no reprimand.
More dying, please! We can’t afford the peace!
The mounting costs leave few sheep fit to fleece.
Who next will pay the ransom on demand?
Once folly starts, it cannot ever cease.
Yet still the sophists ladle on the grease:
Those ancient fallacies the flames have fanned.
More dying, please! We can’t afford the peace!
The lies add up in thousands dead apiece.
The questions begged, both trivial and bland:
Once folly starts, it cannot ever cease?
More dying, please? We can’t afford the peace?
Michael Murry, "The Misfortune Teller," Copyright 2008