Getting a Villanelle to Jell

My interest was piqued when Neo announced the next contest was to be a villanelle. I had often heard of the form but never tried one. It seemed way too confining and secondly it seemed to require too much of the reader. I had read Dylan Thomas’ poem “Do Not Go Gentle” many times and loved it but never knew it was a villanelle. So, since this discovery, I have been practicing villanelles and will share some of my tries.

Here are some of my first impressions of the art.

The choice of the first and third line in the first stanza are very important, obviously since they will repeat throughout the rest of the poem.
These two lines should be related also obviously.
The second (third by count) line should logically follow the first in some way. Such as a problem and resolution or a generality and a detail, or a cause and a result, or a statement and its complement, etc.
These lines should be dramatic to carry their repetition through the rest of the poem with continuing interest.
Dylan even linked the repeating lines into a sentence started in the line before; very hard to do. The second stanza, last two lines is an example: “Because their words had forked no lightning they/ Do not go gentle into that good night.”
Another obvious: Since there are only two rhymes in the poem both have to have a lot of possibilities.
The task of this form is to maintain the flow of meaning at the same time as accomplishing the rhyme.