P is for Paradelle
This form is a parody of a villanelle. It’s not supposed to make sense. It is a poem of four six-line stanzas in which the first and second lines, as well as the third and fourth lines of the first three stanzas, must be identical. The fifth and sixth lines, which traditionally resolve these stanzas, must use all the words from the preceding lines and only those words. Similarly, the final stanza must use every word from all the preceding stanzas and only these words.a
Your honesty lends a pallor to this place.
Your honesty lends a pallor to this place.
Across the table, coffee and cigarettes.
Across the table, coffee and cigarettes.
Honesty lends coffee and a pallor to this table.
Across your place, the cigarettes.
I try to seem brilliant.
I try to seem brilliant.
I laugh when appropriate.
I laugh when appropriate.
Laugh when I try to seem brilliant.
Appropriate, I.
Who are we reading? Nietzsche?
Who are we reading? Nietzsche?
It is Kafka, and I am an idiot.
It is Kafka, and I am an idiot.
Who is Kafka? Nietzsche is an idiot.
And are we reading it? I am.
Nietzsche and cigarettes, appropriate.
Honesty is brilliant. I am reading your laugh.
Kafka, who is I, lends this table a pallor.
I seem an idiot when I try to.
Across the place and to coffee.
Are we it?