Using form: Villanelle: Barbara Loots, ‘Docent’

The art museum behind the big bronze door.
The yellow buses lining up outside.
The little children eager to explore.

The chirpy docent: Who’s been here before?
Please pay attention. I will be your guide.
At this museum, behind that big bronze door,

there’s nudity, depravity, and gore
to take your little psyches for a ride.
You children will be able to explore

the beauty born of fear, of faith, of war,
of ancient ritual and genocide
that cannot hide behind a brazen door.

Beheadings hardly happen anymore.
Most artists have avoided suicide.
You children are encouraged to explore

the human drama we cannot ignore,
the shape of visions and the forms of pride
collected here behind the big bronze door.

You’ll find despair, anxiety, and more.
Your eyes will bleed. Your skulls crack open wide.
Have fun. Enjoy yourselves as you explore
the art museum behind the big bronze door.

*****

Barbara Loots writes: “I have served fourteen years as a volunteer Docent at the renowned Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City. For our school-age visitors, the methods we use to encourage looking and thinking are prescribed, professional, and age appropriate. However, often on my mind are the dark, unspoken underpinnings of art. The repetitive nature of museum tours suggested a villanelle.”

Barbara Loots resides with her husband, Bill Dickinson, and their boss Bob the Cat
in the historic Hyde Park neighborhood of Kansas City, Missouri. Her poems have
appeared in literary magazines, anthologies, and textbooks since the 1970s. She is a
frequent contributor to lightpoetrymagazine.com. Her three collections are Road Trip
(2014), Windshift (2018), and The Beekeeper and other love poems (2020), at Kelsay
Books or Amazon. More bio and blog at barbaraloots.com

Photo: “Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri, USA” by ernie_nh7l is marked with Public Domain Mark 1.0.