Back to 2006 Ghazals
Issue Five
- Whiskey Tears, Kathy Egan
- Aelia: A Ghazal, Roger Robison
- Reading Beckett, Samuel Salerno
- Van Gogh, R. L. Kennedy
- Contemplative Ghazal, Red Slider
- Editor's Comments
Whiskey Tears
by Kathy Egan
Time and laughter disappear
On the crest of whisky tears
Christmas shimmers in the air,
Season blest through whisky tears
Windblown cairns of brick and glass
Coalesced from whisky tears
Kathy went to Midnight Mass,
She confessed in whisky tears
Aelia: A Ghazal
by Roger Robison
Martial had plenty to tell, Aelia.
Having four teeth must be hell, Aelia.
After their loss in two hacking fits though,
Coughing's no longer a knell, Aelia.
Senex, in future remember her plight;
Write in a verse what befell Aelia.
Reading Beckett
by Samuel Salerno
A man says, I can't go on, I will not rise.
Another man says, Let's go, I am ready to rise.
The stars that cartwheel across the sky
are only there because we make them rise.
How strange are the faces we pass each day!
In their eyes we see each morning a moon rise.
scents wild orchids that allow a memory to rise!
When one wakes, his friends are sleeping.
When they're awake, he fails to rise.
If I am a dream, I still must wake.
If I am a shadow, I still must rise.
Van Gogh
by R. L. Kennedy
Light broadly rayed begot Van Gogh.
The person made was not Van Gogh.
No mortal bade his plot to flow.
Life's grand charade touched not Van Gogh.
Paint's bright cascade forgot ego.
Strokes madly laid were not Van Gogh.
Fate felt betrayed so 'loft a blow.
The man it slayed was not Van Gogh.
Contemplative Ghazal
by Red Slider
It is time to leave this Tavern under the burning sun, its drink slidesdown the throat as easily the poet's words mirage a thirsty replicate.
O' Mirror! confirm these shers exist that first appear in replicate
What could be lonelier than that? Images of shers, mere replicates.
At the bottom of an oaken cask, dry wine & old bouquets of ash,
Murky stains from livelier days, that lessen in pure replicate.
What kind of mission was it? to climb the oily sides of shale hills
Past collapsed clay idols wailing in sun-boiled fake-fur replicates
Two children play on the living room floor, three burnt matches—
The Witches in force! wind, fire and fate, coarse fear replicates!
In your eyes gather the reins of love; your voice, so lovely, cries
for those in need. Call out! Gather the tired feet, the years so replicate.
There is no permanence in change save that well-known symmetry
that Heraclitus thought pure fire; to the moistened soul, tears replicate.
Left to right, right to left, but what are they to one another?
Reflections that obey the whims of tavern talk which I've dared replicate.
It is time to leave this Tavern under the burning sun, its drink slides
down the throat as easily the poet's words mirage a thirsty replicate.
Editor's Comments
Here are five new ghazals that, I'm sure, you will find challenging and rewarding. In case you are reluctant to call the ones with less than five shers ghazals, I suggest that you read them for what they are and note their use of ghazal features.
I'm not a big fan of American country music, although I do listen to some. Back in college, I liked to go to bars with friends, drink beer, and play country songs on the jukebox. In any case, Kathy Egan's "Whiskey Tears" has a distinct flavor of the country song. The flavor is in the theme and not the diction, which is much more sophisticated than most country lyrics. Still, if ghazals in English were sung, I could hear this one with steel guitar accompaniment.
Latin epigrams are pretty far from country music, and, one would think, ghazals. This version of one of Martial's includes the self-reflexiveness characteristic of art and literature for a long time now. To see other translations of this verse by Roger, visit his poetry page. You'll find good poems in a range of forms there as well.
"Reading Beckett" may rely on the reader's familiarity with Beckett. The reader unfamiliar with Beckett can still perceive the bareness that this ghazal reflects from Beckett's works, the basic, apparently trivial frustrations we daily experience. If you haven't read Beckett, his best-known piece is the play, "Waiting for Godot." He also wrote poetry and novels, which, even if not to your taste, are worth some reading so that you have at least an acquaintance with an important writer.
If one qafiya is good, why not two? For me, R. L. Kennedy's intensifying the rhyme by doubling—and in each line and rhyming "Van Gogh" in each sher as well—sonically replicates Van Gogh's brush work and Fauvist intensity. A rich density of rhyme . . .
Along with Roger Robison and R. L. Kennedy, Red Slider has appeared in The Ghazal Page before. This ghazal is rich with allusion and implications. The theme/image of replication itself can take the reader a long way. Red's replication of the matla as the maqta (first couplet as last) underscores the theme. (And, in one perspective, contemplation also is a replication.)