Back to 2007 Ghazals
April Issue
- Memory, Xuan Lin
- October Eros in B, Joan Logghe
- Simplicity, Joan Logghe
- Ghazal, Joan Logghe
- The Town That Never Changes, R. W. Watkins
- E. T., R. W. Watkins
- Editor's Comments
Memory Ghazal
Xuan Lin, a.k.a. Mike Farman
Experts will tell you there's no true memory,
only the memory of a memory of a memory.
Each day we pursue a thousand distant butterflies;
what capture does it take to make a new memory?
Those loves lived through, but lost: pure joy remains,
even though half-smothered by a blue memory.
As if on cue, at troubled times, the action movie plays
muddled scenes and moments, riffling through memory.
However you may rue some shamefaced yesterdays;
when they resurface, nothing can subdue memory.
A toppled zoo, with menacing creatures running wild:
that's certainly a valid way to view memory.
His mind askew with turmoil from the past,
Xuan Lin, for now, has opted to eschew memory.
October Eros in B
Joan Logghe
For Agha Shahid Ali
The old beauty we love wears a gold bee on his lapel.
A stunning man died recently from the sting of a bee.
The Sicilian woman nods, twiddles her brilliant thumbs.
Even her habits are blessed choreography, the dance of bees.
How can we document happiness in a plain white life?
Hold on. If you want some sting, don't ask me, ask the bees.
You, my impossible, turn out to be my breathing Paradise.
We sit at a card table for years, dine out, shoo away bees.
My neighbor fought for England, moved here, still limps on a gimpy
British knee. Grows extravagant gardens, raises honey bees.
Agha, who taught me ghazal, has cancer. May his span of days
be filled with Urdu gardens where dragonflies dally with bees.
He said, "Guitars get jealous," tuned his to another frequency.
My son has a fretful guitar, drives east, navigating by the bees.
John Lennon dead twenty years, right when I started poetry.
His killer's parole denied, as if Mother Mary piped up, "Let it be."
I made a lunch date Yom Kippur when I needed to stay empty.
Extenuating circumstances of love, Book of Life, let me be.
To be or not to be was the old question. Nowadays old
Joan Logghe is strangely vain. She thinks she' the queen bee.
Turn to Simplicity
Joan Logghe
Be Quaker and plain, enough
Of this bling and blather, turn to the five directions.
I'm simply not content with resting,
I leap up, head north into the next direction.
The one I love burned his hand yesterday.
At home, though he's also burned in love's direction.
Give me the map to California Of coast and edge.
I've leaned too much in home's secure direction.
Does every poem have the word flatter built in.
If I flirt too, in and out, which direction.
Lop off the tree limbs of blighted peach.
All the blossoms yield friend in the wind's direction.
My prayers are as short as breath. I begin
On inhale, sigh out in God's direction.
Beti said, Joni, the golden rule. No other
Directive on earth has such clear directions.
Ghazal
Joan Logghe
Is this a maple tree's sap
Or an injured boy from Vermont home from the war?
Is this an interpretation of dreams
Of Freud's suspenders found under his desk?
Is this the way water mixes with clouds
And you drink beer anyway?
Is this a flirtation of sparrows or some leftover
Starlings after the girls shoots them with her grandpa's gun?
Is this a good investment in sagebrush
Or the cactus thorns that adorn the latest saint?
Is this the beginning of a marriage
Or the execution of lilacs?
Is the name more important that the face?
Why are surnames lined up to enlist in the army?
Is the bombing of seventeen Pakistani worth
The price of a missed terrorist?
Who established the ring as a symbol for weddings?
Why not give each other crackers?
Are lunatics all women because they ride bicycles
And roulette wheels home from the soup kitchen?
Who christens the casinos with the back taxes
Of lost houses?
Are gamblers all optimists? Do pessimists
Make better mothers?
Can Joan Logghe learn Spanish
When dead words in Hebrew clog her memory?
The Town That Never Changes
R. W. Watkins
There is a past that grasps so dearly in this town that never changes.
The slightest shift is hidden clearly in this town that never changes.
The airport's lounge is pure Late '60s and its gift shop panders relics;
us tourists change the look just merely in this town that never changes.
A black Trans Am from 1980 burns past boys in leather jackets
--the New and Chic recycle yearly in this town that never changes.
Some kneeless jeans and naked bellies dot the mall where fashion prances.
It's Punk and Grunge still so sincerely in this town that never changes.
The minimart was built in '50 and has had no rearrangements.
It's not a Capra still, but nearly, in this town that never changes.
E.T.
R. W. Watkins
You came inside your body 'fore I came into this world.
Like some bear to honey, I walked lame into this world.
The Church controlled your parents as it still enslaves its fold;
as obstructive dogma, it's brought shame into this world.
You felt confined by custom so you left your town of birth
--you had plans for Brooklyn: burn your name into this world.
A man you loved in Yonkers was the pawn and playing field;
a child's dream in fever drew the game into this world.
You prayed to Hell and Limbo and your cunt addressed the Earth:
"Scream 'Burn! Burn! Brief Candle! Bring your flame into this world!'"
Now ten or more years later and your lover has been killed.
Evil tied with Goodness--staked its claim into this world.
Editor's Comments
For web publishing, at least, I've had this half-dozen poems too long. Print publishing is a different matter. My experience as a contributor to and editor of little magazines and small press books is that long delays in editor's responses and in publication of accepted work are typical. Electronic media make all of us impatient. I suspect that you, like me, sit frustrated waiting for a computer to respond in a time that would've seemed miraculous a few years ago.
In the interest of not prolonging publishing these poems, I am keeping these comments very brief. After all, the poems are the real interest anyway.
It's a pleasure to publish new poems by Mike Farman and Joan Logghe, each of whom have appeared here before, and an added pleasure to present two poems by R. W. Watkins, whose journal, Contemporary Ghazals, publishes solid ghazals. ALLExperts has a fine page on Rob. Have a look.