A French Meal

The virelai is a French poetic form with alternating rhymes and line lengths. Here are basic guidelines: + nine lines per stanza, + lines one, two, four, five, seven, and eight have five syllables

+ lines three, six, and nine have two syllables

+ the five-syllable lines rhyme with each other and the two-syllable lines rhyme with each other to make the following rhyme pattern: aabaabaab

+ the end rhyme for the short lines continues on in the following stanza

+ the final stanza’s short-line end rhyme should be the same as the long-line end rhyme in the opening stanza (to complete the end-rhyme circle)

Note on stanzas: This form can contain as few as two stanzas to infinity (if you could write that many). Writer’s Digest, by Robert Lee Brewer

Here’s my attempt at a virelai:

French meal

What a deal, this meal

I enjoy the deal

Oh no

it is a real steal

That is what I feel

I know

you will surely squeal

as I stop to heal

That’s so

~

Let us place a bow

tie on your best beaux

French food

a fabulous flow

a beautiful glow

a mood

Who eats with this show?

My man and I go

and wooed.

~

The best coffee brewed.

I feel like I’m glued

to eel

it is gratitude

for my attitude

this meal

as it does conclude

sir, no platitude

great deal

~

FRENCH POETIC FORM

~~~~~~~~~

First published by Mercury Press on medium.com