Back to 2005 Ghazals
2005, Set One
- Memphis Jazz, R. L. Kennedy
- Ghazal Ghazal, David Lunde Brooklyn Ghazal, Elizabeth Willse
- Egyptian Gods in "Memphis Jazz"
- Editor's Comments
Memphis Jazzby R. L. Kennedy
Ancient Memphis, eternal jazz. Leave Cairo's thousand minarets,
Quit delta musk for dry cool tunes. ****
Non sequiturs howl, Neith's Sobek swoons. No push and pull of fore and past. Diviners trod mud flats and dunes. ****
Two thousand years since Rome's tribunes, Throughout the night acts most arcane,
Chons and Thoth fade bright orange moons ****
On odd nights search amongst some ruins. |
Egyptian Gods in "Memphis Jazz"by R. L. Kennedy
|
Ghazal Ghazal
by David Lunde
"Gah-zul," "ga-zaal," "gaa-zul"--the ways infidels say "a ghazal,"
But we who know "wine and bread and thou" say, "a guzzle!"
The two lines above are the matla, which establishes the form;
Their gafia and radif, "rhyme" and "refrain," convey: a ghazal.
Like a black goat jumping walls, the form should liberate;
"Stone walls do not a prison make" if the spirit essays a ghazal.
Unlike couplets of Dryden and Pope, slaved to a central thought,
Each couplet is free to stray and play at will in a ghazal.
The muezzin in his minaret calls the faithful to the mosque to pray;
But with his favorite wife--ah, the prayer he prays for her's a ghazal.
Once a Professor, always I guess, still trying to teach a lesson;
Here's Dave, sipping wine, hoping someone will pay for a ghazal.
Brooklyn Ghazal
by Elizabeth Willse
Hungry for a kiss, take the train to Brooklyn,
Speeding under the river to your arms in Brooklyn.
Sunset paints the sky through the Manhattan Bridge,
Train stalls. The sky stretches between me and Brooklyn.
Crimson leaves underfoot, the incense of woodsmoke
Rises through the burnished brass air of Brooklyn.
In your doorway, I savor the rich kitchen smells,
I kiss the nape of your neck from behind, in Brooklyn.
We both love stout cheddar's dark filigreed veins,
We'll be bankrupted by that cheese shop in Brooklyn.
Whispers and laughter, holding you warm and close,
Fall asleep in your arms and wake up in Brooklyn.
Spiced black tea sweetens one last kiss, and one more
Grudging return to the world beyond Brooklyn.
Sentences dangle, the story unfinished,
I left the book I've been reading in Brooklyn.
On either side of the river, I'm leaving home,
An Elizabeth-shaped absence, here and in Brooklyn.
Editor's Comments
Minimal comments this time.
Memphis Jazz
What is ancient is now; Memphis on the Mississippi hangs in the background like a mirage, at least for this reader.
And is that 'Trane's fine tenor I hear, caressing a love supreme or playing in chorus with Neith?
I misread "Two thousand years since Rome's tribunes" as " . . . Rome's trombones" . . . the error in the ear that hears an echo of image.
Old-fashioned poetic inversion does the job of syncopation:
"Memnon's fine airs does dawn announce"
The inserted stanzas are a 4 / 3 ballad meter.
Ghazal Ghazal
The form that defines itself ("defies" in the back of my punning mind . . . ) The title doubles itself: as Heraclitus might say, "You cannot say the same word twice." That thought reflects on the repetition of the radif.
The goat jumping walls suggests "corral" a nice off-rhyme with "ghazal"; the shers throughout suggest the tension between constraints and liberty or the constraints enabling liberty or that without walls to jump, the goat can't enact its freedom. Its powers. Strength.
Brooklyn Ghazal
A double leaving . . . a double absence . . . does absence rhyme with itself? Are two absences the same as one? Are the absences a kind of radif, a repetition, the "same" but in different contexts?