Sacrum Silentium

This is one that echoes around the brain and niggles there, again, and again, and again...

Excellent work. I had to read this three times before it sunk in properly. I love the concept. The cycle of it fits the villanelle form beautifully. So clever. Well done!

Great word choices here; I especially liked “Hues brash stain the canvas’ stark chastity.” The blue image brought to my mind, by some association, Tool cover art. Your poem reminded me of two passages, only tangentially pertinent: “The forms are many in which the unchanging seeks relief from its formlessness.” (Samuel Beckett, ‘Malone Dies’) “Without the original revelation of the nothing, no selfhood and no freedom. […] In the Being of beings the nihilation of the nothing occurs.” (Martin Heidegger, ’What is Metaphysics’)

This feels like watching art wrestle with itself, seeking a balance between form and formlessness. Beautifully expressed!!! Congratulations on the top story! Well deserved❤

Wow this was powerful! I aspire to be able to write something this beautiful someday! Amazing job!

HMMM!! This one makes you go hmmmm! Well done, congrats.

Thus is excellent. Congrats on the TS

Damn, this is worthy of at least three close readings! I really like this idea of the form itself wishing for formlessness. Specifically, the form that is forced to exist to compensate for humanity's inability to be comfortable with the abstract or the unknowable/incomprehensible. Like line two says: "Art, craft, science: all impose, all demand." We put so many boundaries down without ever letting ourselves fully embrace the complexity of a given topic/concept/truth/etc., and it's the boundaries that stop us from doing so later, or that make it super hard and on a delay. Like many of the sciences, for example, but even philosophy, and yes, of course, art too. I feel like this poem is critiquing the Villanelle form while also serving as social commentary, which makes sense to pair together. By critiquing the poetic form, or all poetic forms, you're making your point all the more clear: artificial forms might prolong profundity or at least, dilute it. It's hubris to think that an unanswered question is somehow lesser than an answered one. As you say in your poem, "pure and cold is the page, perfect and bright | before crude signs tattoo its virgin skin." I'm enjoying the puzzle of your third line and reprise: "Rude is the will that somethings nothingness." Not really a puzzle when you turn off your grammar brain (ie, the form that wants formlessness); but I saw myself reading it over and over, trying to understand if you made an error with "somethings" and ultimately concluding at the end of the poem that no, it was very much intentional, and that makes the reading different than what I'd initially supposed. Bravo! This is a wonderful piece!! Oh, if you ever want to create stanza breaks, Alt+255 or on Mac, Option+ Spacebar is the way to do it. It's very handy, if you're ever wanting. I find that I must insert a few on a blank line to get Vocal to acknowledge it, and keep it that way.

"Hubris belches in the cathedral" - that is such a great line.

This was quite thought-provoking and complex. Lots of metaphors. "Hues brash stain the canvas’ stark chastity" was a particularly powerful one. My interpretation (from reading the subtitle) is that this is the beginning of a villain's arc... am I correct?

I'm wrapping my head around the idea of granting sanctity to nothingness....it's very fun to grapple with.