Heh heh, that's a clever one, Dan. And it's not a problem 'cause I like helping where I can.

Ciao for now...

Dan ^
        |   Is this what you're looking for? Instead of posting a second time I just updated the first post, but I guess you missed it. But that's my fault, cause I never told ya.

The Rondelet is another French form, and a member of the rondeau family.  That family of forms uses refrains. The challenge is to make the refrain one that is meaningful and memorable; it must fit the content of the poem as a whole.

The Rhyme Scheme of a rondelet is AbAabbA where the refrain is four syllables and all other lines eight syllables.  However, if one is writing accentual syllabic verse, it becomes a two-foot refrain and a four-foot line.

A
b
A  (refrain - entire first line)
a  (rhmes with first line)
b
b
A  (refrain - entire first line)

_{note: a refrain is a stanza, line, part of a line, or phrase which is normally pertinent to the central topic and is repeated verbatim, usually at regular intervals throughout a poem, and most often at the end of a stanza.}


This was my first attempt at Rondelet, but I offer it as illustration, poor as it may be (and it was even worse before literarius' [Adam's] careful eye helped me to offer come correction to our description of the form!):

A Blood Line

The blood billows
from the drunken diver's fresh wound...
the blood billows
warmly from beneath the willows
where his young wife had moaned and swooned;
since she's in silence self-harpooned
the blood billows

_{© MLee Dickens'son 29 Aug 2008, rev. 16 Nov 08}


Maybe someone else can give it a shot... but please, not with a loaded gun!

Lightly, Daniel