Nada

I meant to write a villanelle today

But somehow time just got away from me

I don’t have anything I want to say.

I cleared my garden of weeds and decay

And did Crimes Problem Sets both Six and Three,

But didn’t write a villanelle today.

I’m not inspired; nothing came my way

To spark a thought, a pondering, a key.

There isn’t anything I want to say.

And now it’s late; bedtime I must obey,

Yet this important fact won’t let me be:

I didn’t write a villanelle today!

I’d pull my hair out, but I know that they

Would ask me why I’d do such things to me,

But still there’s nothing that I want to say.

So one last thing before I go away:

Does this poem constitute mise en abîme?

I didn’t write a villanelle today,

Because there’s nothing that I want to say.