Back to 2008 Ghazals
The Ghazal Page
February Issue
- Gorillas, Mary Cresswell
- Declaration of Independence, Mary Cresswell
- what lurks, David Sklar
- increments, David Sklar
- Japanese Ghazal, Steffen Horstmann
- A Ghazal for Majid, Robert Godwin
- Editor's Comments
Gorillas
Mary Cresswell
In the course of evolution, gorillas can’t be missed.
They’re all icons of the glossies, gorillas in the mist.
Charismatic megafauna always win: spiders go
extinct in silence. Unlike gorillas, they’re barely missed.
Off Zanzibar, Calypso chased The Minnow to the shore.
The crews looked up, agog, to see gorillas on the mast.
But I don’t want walls of jungle when I can have the sea,
spinifex, and the wild white cry of curlews in the mist.
These last years, I’ve become quite a connoisseur of monsters.
All the trendy ones are soulless. Dear Grendel’s greatly missed.
Declaration of Independence
Mary Cresswell
The entire country tried for years to ban its king.
Auguries examined, priests asked which man is king?
The first king is dead, his goose well and truly cooked.
We served up his reign in a golden ramekin.
At first, we thought to replace him by election,
but the Teflon guys themselves ran and ran again.
No no no no, we cried into our own pink ears,
this is really not a good time for panicking!
Another ruby-studded cockerel got propped up.
He was only a front, a jeweled mannequin.
That king disappeared. The Teflon guys assured us,
it’s the lull before the storm, when no bird can sing.
When the peasants revolted, it was not a mass
eruption, but certainly some volcanic thing.
From stage right, someone wheeled a puppet androgyne
dressed to the gills in mauve chiffon and crystal bling.
Welcome! we cried, we’ve all been waiting for you!
In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
what lurks
David Sklar
dark ripples glisten in a stream at night,
reflect, again, the moon's beams, in the night
no, nothing in this place is as it seems
(something moves in the water — black scales gleam in the night)
when birds call out, your insides almost jump —
though it is well past dusk — larks scream in the night
a shovel strikes the earth beneath a stump,
turns steaming sod (a warm, wet lump) in the night
all this I say is an interrupted dream
in curious whispers of things that go bump in the night.
increments
David Sklar
from a cliffside cave a hermit cries out
desperate for god
my love you are rain in the desert you sing
an oasis in my heart
today there is dust in my marrow
it burns in my bones as i walk
the sun takes an hour to travel
a hand's breadth across the sky
(the dance of electron and proton composes
the honeycomb of matter)
my heart cries out cries out cries out
my lungs breathe in
the only true thing is distance it is
all that is real in the world
the space between stars in the heavens
is less than the breadth of my hand
(but all the world's oceans drown the road
from lemuel to liane)
Japanese Ghazal
Steffen Horstmann
The fragrance of chrysanthemums in a teahouse —
Through paper walls a geisha's shadow bows.
Leaves whirl in the air like notes of music,
Rain pasting plum petals on monastery walls.
The grove of candles surrounds a Shinto altar,
Tongues of light flickering without voices.
Sunlit water beneath Saihoji temple — in a minnow's
Transparent body the diminutive heart pulses.
A forest's memory of ashes falling like black snow …
The phoenix's vacant nest in an Empress tree.
Issa listens for poems in the wind's exhalations,
Likens koans to tangled wistaria vines.
Drops of water drip into a puddle, the only sound
In the palace of the Bodhisattvas.
A tempest stitched into the fabric of the sea —
Lightning in the clouds of Banzaemon's kimono.
Lady Sarashina depicts her trek through mountain passes —
A galloping calligraphy wrought in austere black.
The sun's red disc dissolving in the ocean …
Twilight's jewel — a single, loitering star.
Its dark glass reflects Eguchi in brocaded silk,
The mirror by day embodied as a pond.
Air swirls in catacombs of a desiccated bee hive,
Branches of an ancient ginkgo tree caging the breeze.
Buson dreams a silent funnel cloud rising above water,
Hears the sea whisper into the ear's shell.
Beneath Mt. Fuji a pavilion's bell tolls,
Cherry blossoms falling on a samurai's shrine.
A Ghazal For Majid
Robert Godwin
Majid arrived today, and I am overjoyed
To hear I need not pay — and I am overjoyed.
Nineteen ghazals? Twenty-one? It matters not!
His verses make my day, and I am overjoyed.
On poetry I feast, and daily shop for more;
This book is a buffet — and I am overjoyed.
These sher are read quite late at night. My room is dim,
Much like a closed café — and I am overjoyed.
Each sher a rose, the bundled ghazal swells,
Becomes a sweet bouquet, and I am overjoyed.
Such beauty lies within each pair of holy lines,
Suggesting their display, and I am overjoyed.
An Audience Of One — a book of daily prayer!
My heart now leaps in play, and I am overjoyed.
My Jewish soul surrenders to the book’s demand
I stand, cry out — and pray! And I am overjoyed.
After midnight, prayer has smothered all my sins
Which fall in disarray — and I am overjoyed.
These prayers, in pain and tears, approach, to hear:
“Your sins are turned away!” And I am overjoyed!
No longer led astray — and I am overjoyed.
The Audience of One reveals what I must do:
His Law I will obey! And I am overjoyed.
Robin writes as Robin must, ‘til comes the time
He hears another say: “And I am overjoyed!”
Editor's Comments
Mary Cresswell
The half-rhyme is a well established form in poetry; why not the "half-radif"? Of course, in "Gorillas," each occurence of the radif is phonically identical, except for "mast" in sher 3. There are promising resources for wit and surprise in using homophones in the radif as well as words that are nearly the same. I'm especially surprised and delighted by "gorillas on the mast." Something similar happens in "Declaration of Independence," in which the qafiya and radif are fused and varied in such a way that it's hard (for me, at least) to distinguish them. This play with near- or off-rhymes reinforces the theme of the poem.
David Sklar
In the email submitting his two ghazals, David Sklar wrote,Both are in-character writing from a novel in progress, from the perspective of a character named Lemuel Harik, who performs them in the novel as lead singer for a band called Things That Go Bump in the Night. Therefore, the signature line for each of the ghazals references Lemuel or the band, although I have hidden my own surname in line 6 of "what lurks."
Both have additional experimental touches: "what lurks" has an interlocking rubiee overlaid on top of the ghazal form. "increments" is much less traditional and has fewer structural tricks, though I feel it's a much truer expression of the character and the spirit of the form. And, although I may be stating the obvious here, I've departed from the traditional signature in the last line to add a dedication (also to a character in the book).
I don't have much to add, except that the horizontal spaces in "Increments" express the themes of distance and micro-structure in the poem.
Steffen Horstmann
Try reading each sher in this ghazal as a haiku or perhaps a tanka. The imagery in each calls for the reader to pause in reflection. All fourteen shers present evocative imagery that recalls the Japanese forms. Some of the images are more dynamic, more direct, more filled-out than conventional in haiku, but the parallel is there.
Robert Godwin
This ghazal refers to Majid Mohiuddin's ghazals. His "The Ghazal, In my Opinion," was published in The Ghazal Page in 2004. The Ghazal Page also reviewed his collection, An Audience of One.
In this ghazal, Robert Godwin pays homage to Majid's ghazals. There is a leap between each pair of shers, and yet the focus remains always on the poets overjoyed response to Majid's poems. Godwin's ghazal adheres to the Persian form faithfully, with an admirably long radif and an effectively varied qafiya. (I've been asked how long a radif can be, and I don't have a simple answer. The six syllables in this radif seem just the right length.)