Unfair call!
I've only ever written one and can't claim any great achievement, was merely satisfied I'd completed the damned thing.
Just to remind people of the form and constraints of a villanelle:
It's the repeated use of two lines, initially the first and third line throughout the total of 19 lines which make up the poem. The overall rhyme scheme is: aba aba aba aba aba abaa . The first line also appears on the 6th, 12th and 18th line, and the second line on the 9th, 15th and final line.
Villanelle . . . best I can suggest is find a rhyme that has plenty of companions and make sure your sentence/phrase can be expressed in different ways.
For Constance
You cough and sniff to disguise the true emotion
when hushed tears fall with more eloquence,
but I appreciate your constant effort and devotion
regarding avoidance of a public commotion,
to protect me from the damning evidence.
You cough and sniff. To disguise the true emotion,
I too partake of the poison, a physick’s potion
when I see you suffer sickly consequence.
But I appreciate your constant effort and devotion,
such masquerade, slicked thick like lotion,
the tell-tale signs of an inner malevolence
you cough and sniff to disguise. The true emotion
swells within like surf will burst upon the ocean
on an incoming tide spumed with iridescence,
but I appreciate your constant effort and devotion
and just as the sea serves a moonlit notion
I am drawn to your pain and worldly ailments.
You cough and sniff to disguise the true emotion
but I appreciate your constant effort and devotion.
