V is for VLCRPTR and a Villanelle

I am participating in the A to Z Challenge this month, and today's letter is V.
Click here for the list of blogs participating.

I have spent the past year-ish taking pictures of Maine vanity plates when I encountered them - most all in shopping center parking lots.

I am writing a poem for each one, and this year the poem form begins with the same letter.  I found 3 Maine vanity plates for today that begin with V, and I chose to write a Villanelle.

A villanelle is a 19-line poem, made up of five tercets and quatrain as the last stanza. Lines  follow an ABA rhyme scheme.
The first line of the first stanza is repeated as the last line in stanzas 2 and 4, and is the third line in the final quatrain stanza.
The third line of the first stanza is repeated as the last line in stanzas 3 and 5, and as the last line in the final quatrain stanza.
So - using capitals for the refrains and lowercase letters for the rhymes, the form looks like this:  

A1 b A2 / a b A1 / a b A2 / a b A1 / a b A2 / a b A1 A2.

And it's just that easy.

Again, I am better off if I come up with my A1 line and write it in wherever it needs to be, then do the same with any other repeating line.  I add the other lines, making sure of the rhyming and than they all make sense.  I make adjustments to them to make sure they are in a correct rhyming sequence and that they make grammatical sense, etc. before wiping my brow and closing the lid on my laptop. 

https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/text/villanelle-poetic-form

Velociraptor

Oh, Mister Velociraptor, feathered dinosaur bird

You were called the speedy thief

Though small you were undeterred.

You couldn’t fly, but that just insured

You could run fast albeit brief

Oh, Mister Velociraptor, feathered dinosaur bird.

You had teeth, which seems absurd

But that just meant you could deal out grief.

Though small you were undeterred.

You hunted together in a herd

That’s the paleontologists’ belief

Oh, Mister Velociraptor, feathered dinosaur bird

Velociraptor, your name averred

That of winged dinos you were chief.

Though small you were undeterred.

From this one might have inferred

A supper of beef wins over leaf

Oh, Mister Velociraptor, feathered dinosaur bird,

Though small you’re undeterred.

by Donna JT Smith, ©2018

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I should have tried working these two plates into the poem...bet I could have.  Too late.