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Deities perished in a desert of vast clouds.
Skies are troubled with phantoms of past clouds.
A tempest paused to observe cyclones duel —
& the gathering thunderheads amassed clouds.
A wasteland's theatre features a parched sky
Whose director-god refuses to cast clouds.
An Indian sage reads poems in your dream . . .
Time is an unreeling screen of fast clouds.
Storms stalled like diesels on the sky's highway
& vanished like the spent fuel of their last clouds.
In years of drought nomads recite legends
Of gods who crossed the world riding fast clouds.
Whiskey's sharp sting beneath my tongue — the plane
Hovering above a city's machinated face.
He watches toy cars speeding down the Interstate.
& I witness joy in a child's fascinated face.
Lamps that hang on my eyelids remind me of my free time
White rings on satin death beds bind me until the end of time
He is not like my beakless ducks, entrapped in hay towers
He taints my skin, haunts me like the wind, kills my grayish time
He orders me around like a mongoose, I listen my ears in my throat
He can be cruel, conceited, kind — I listen, I don't have the gift of time
Dresses dangle from my nails, bare-headed streets in my memories
Enough is not a rule in the games of the mind, nor in the game of time
One day your yellow hat will fall off, years will pass, he says
Years will pass, I guess, even if I grind every second of my time
We both pass the fields of maize, farm insects climb my legs
They want you, he says, they're neither blind nor wasting their time
Last night I woke up with white hard papers all around my waist
I guess he's just reminding me of my status as the slave of time
Broken glass marks my way, golden peacocks mark his
Aya, you'll never find it. Just be content, you haven't much time
After rain eon, I sip the finest wine
Cool clear air, I sip the finest wine.
Wet sand perfumes everything and all,
God forgets who he really is; I sip the finest wine.
I ignite my bike going nowhere and everywhere,
Moon blooms to see my ride; I sip the finest wine.
No flower misses me on the way down and way up,
Stars smile at themselves; I sip the finest wine.
A dragon is at loss drunken and seduced,
I become nobody; I sip the finest wine.
Karthik says: boat race and honey moon boating
Have difference, I sip the finest wine.
Sun Jul 6 09:46:12 2008
Our eyes return continually to the sky and its phenomena. Even with the light pollution of cities, the major elements remain important within the horizon of human awareness. These clouds that flow through Steffen Horstmann's ghazal flow also above the Ozarks. Taoist sages ride clouds along with the gods we imagine there.
In "Ghazal of Perspectives," Steffen presents the reader with two shers, one for the adult, one for the child. Perhaps the theme of the poem is concentrated in the qafiya: "machinated," "fascinated."
Traditionally, ghazals in Persian form are identified by their radifs. In European and American poetry, most readers expect poems to have titles. "Untitled" or the first line printed as title seem like cop-outs. What can a title do for a ghazal? Aya Ibrahim's title exemplifies the best kind of title a ghazal can have. "Mortality" concentrates the theme; "ghazal" informs the reader of the genre. And then the flow of wonderful images realizes the theme. The radif embodies the insistence of flow/passage that the poem expresses.
It seems to me that this poem speaks from, and of, the "cloud of unknowing" of medieval England, the "great doubt" of Zen — "I sip the finest wine" resolves the koan of each sher. Now, I've written myself into a corner on this ghazal. My apologies to Karthikeyan; Reader, just have a sip of his finest wine.