Dancing shaman with a kingfisher's head.
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The Ghazal Page

September Issue

Spiegelbild

Xuan Lin

who would dare follow Alice into spiegelbild
to grope among the quantum rules of spiegelbild?

on our familiar brane, as gravity leaks away
it's closer than an atom's width to spiegelbild

yesterday's tomorrow may not prove to be today
what goes around, won't come around, in spiegelbild

even a glance in tranquil waters may display
distorted jonquil images from spiegelbild

Qin Shi Huang Di, mortal, to his dismay,
remade his total universe in spiegelbild

about that mirror world, what can we truly say?
are gods and devils interchanged, in spiegelbild?

Xuan Lin reflects: identities can go astray
is he his doppelganger, come from spiegelbild?

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Getting Through

Bill Batcher

"Will my students ever learn? Do my lessons get through?"
The student's only concern: Can I get through?

Thirty-seven minutes on hold, listening to music
by Jerome Kern, waiting, waiting to get through.

Rich men can't earn their way to heaven.
For a camel, a needle's eye is easier to get through.

Chapter after chapter, Kerouac pecked away,
carriage return after carriage return, until he got through.

I give up. It's no use. There's no point.
I may as well make an about turn. I'll never get through.

My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?
I am spurned. My prayers do not get through.

Siren screaming, an ambulance sits in gridlock
with a dying burn victim. It can't get through.

Drip, drip, drip, the osmosing water
filters through the urn and coffee gets through.

The suave young man suggests to her
over a golden sauterne, but doesn't get through.

Cars inch toward the customs gate.
The agent looks stern. They hope to get through.

Bill's ghazal is finished, but tell me,
before I adjourn, did I get through?

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Our Dreams

Jennifer Hudock

We were children together, so it seems,
but only ever knew love in our dreams.

Where twisted scapes reflect all we have been
once denied everything except our dreams.

Only when we sleep do we show our love,
the heart is without limit in our dreams.

Now we are both old and out of place here:
a world that doesn't understand our dreams.

I still hold the power to close my eyes
and yield to the temptation of our dreams.

And so I, Jennifer, await you there;
the dark lakeside, the water of our dreams.

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Dissolution of the Heart

Julie Wallace

In the Autumn of our relationship, I am mournful and you are loneliness.
I refused to ignore my muse, and you hated this rock star loneliness.

I thought our storm of discontent would pass. I never wanted to lose
you as my safety net. Still, I rejected the signs of our loneliness.

Then we crashed through a wall that wanted to break. After the cataclysm,
legalities, and devastation, I settled for pine tar loneliness.

In a cabin in the woods, I screamed to the wind and howled at my fate.
I shivered with fear, and despised the small hour loneliness.

Rain and tears fell, yet I wrote on and on. This Dove six-string —
my only companion — brought nothing but bell jar loneliness.

It didn't matter how many records I sold, or how many battles I won.
I am a failure. My only hope and salvation is, thus far, loneliness.

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What To Do In Athens On Monday Night

Julie Wallace

One Saturday night, I was glued to the TV and received an injection of innocence.
He had a devilish grin, sang in a rock and roll band, another infection of innocence.

You think I might have learned from the first crush, but no —
second crush around I still dreamt of marriage, another projection of innocence.

So I grasped for identity and a toe-hold on Self. I bought magazines
and records, had posters and pen pals, sought the perfection of innocence.

I waited with friends in the heat for hours. You arrived miserable and strung out.
Still the girls cried and screamed, fainted and fell, the convection of innocence.

Fans invaded the fairgrounds, danced on the horse track, didn't notice word changes.
My friend and I bought posters and pins, a tartan collection of innocence.

Years later in Athens, home of alternatives, I'd learned of the underbelly of fame.
The bloated man sang, his devilish grin intact, the dejection of innocence.

In the audience, I was appalled by women my age who apparently hadn't
moved on; they clutched battered albums in recollection of innocence.

I pondered young love, turned from the stage. You're an average
singer at best. All my love is lost, a rejection of innocence.

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Trails

R. L. Kennedy

Grey mistrals sow a blustery trail.
Bright Monarchs heed an inner trail.

Sharp minds set off to lift the veil.
Life's tendrils form an endless trail.

Everest's paths host mock travail.
Meek steps can blaze a mighty trail.

A dead child's grin, the cripples wail;
Touch not the timber of the trail.

Encumbered by man's whip and bale,
Beasts dignify a heartless trail.

Well trod paths tell many a tale.
The wise are deaf upon the trail.

For those who never reached to fail,
To Hades runs a busy trail.

With humble soul pursue your grail.
That hallowed goal might be the trail.

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Ghazal Considering the Composition of a Sonnet

Steffen Horstmann

Shakespeare sought to expel his strife
& enclosed it in a sonnet.

Pushkin stole the breath of Siberia
& froze it in a sonnet.

The rain threads air, listens to its own
Measured sound & sews it in a sonnet.

Do not be bound by discontent,
One stows it in a sonnet.

In Paradise Milton nurtures the creative seed
& grows it in a sonnet.

O don't whisper to me your secret,
Disclose it in a sonnet.

I dreamt a purgatorial light
& Dante superimposed it on a sonnet.

Michelangelo claimed silence has a cadence,
That one may hear its echoes within a sonnet.

Michaux spoke of worlds hidden within the world
& disguised a crisp prose in a sonnet.

Shelly heard the ocean breeze whisper rumors of storms,
& wrote of the enchantments of death's repose in a sonnet.

I gaze at windows bent in a wine glass, depicting
How each reflected cloud becomes a rose, in a sonnet.

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Editor's Comments

Fri Aug 31 20:46:02 2007

Of the six poets in this issue, two are new to The Ghazal Page, the other four having had ghazals here before. There's been a flow of good submissions recently: thanks to all.

Mike Farman / Xuan Lin

Mike's use of spiegelbild opens a more general possibility: using a non-English word or phrase as the radif. Bringing in a second language provides a new way of relating to the repeated word. If you're unsure of the meaning of "spiegelbild," read carefully: the poem defines the term.

Bill Batcher

Bill's ghazal plays with the placement of the qafiya; most of the time it appears at or near the caesura. We might think of it as a "floating qafiya." Other ghazals here have experimented with use of rhyme in a ghazal. I don't think an attentive ear would miss this qafiya, and the varying placement makes for less-emphatic line endings than when qafiya is immediatly followed by radif.

Jennifer Hudock

The images we experience in the mirror of dreams do more than reveal our shame to Freud or our inflation to Jung: dream images adhere to our awareness throughout the day, flickering behind (or through) our awareness of day-consciousness's mirror.

Julie Wallace

"Dissolution" seems akin to disillusion in both of these ghazals. The image of the fan-girls fainting for the star — "the convection of innocence" — strikes deep and subtle chords in a way that occurs throughout these two poems. The lines unfold effectively with a number of subtle sound-repetitions, the melodies of improvised song.

R. L. Kennedy

Here is another example of experimenting with the placement of the qafiya. If one displays the couplets as single lines, the qafiya occurs at the hemistich:
Grey mistrals sow a blustery trail. Bright Monarchs heed an inner trail.
Sharp minds set off to lift the veil. Life's tendrils form an endless trail.
I'm not saying that Bob's ghazal would be better displayed this way; I'm merely emphasizing its structure — and encouraging experimentation. These two couplets now resemble (save the radif) a ghazal using Arabic form.

Steffen Horstmann

Especially in older discussions, the ghazal is often compared to the sonnet. That comparison has never seemed helpful to me. Steffen's clever ghazal, however, takes up that comparison and enfolds the sonnet within a ghazal that gives due honor to the sonnet — a true mirror-image of poetic forms.

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