Back to 2010 Ghazals
Home Page | 2010 Ghazals | Gino's Ghazal Blog | Prose | Links | Information | Email | Archives
You've thought of leaving town to go teach in Seoul.
There's nothing to keep us from speaking of Seoul.
You thought we had something there in Vancouver.
I was merely waiting to meet you in Seoul.
Time seems to run backwards here in Halifax.
His wife long departed, he contemplates Seoul.
It was all I could do to leave Montreal.
We'll take the blue line until we're downtown Seoul.
Jay never got laid while living in Saint John.
Girls shiver in skirts in the winter in Seoul.
We lasted a few days in Victoria.
I made for the mainland, you headed for Seoul.
They drove hours to see Fugazi in Boston.
He got dropped off at Logan en route to Seoul.
Stacey had a job all lined up in Fort Mac.
Then she got word how easy life is in Seoul.
U2 will play London, Bon Jovi Moncton.
I would pass up the Stones to see you in Seoul.
Your voice glides on wires across the Pacific.
The waves whisper your name between here and Seoul.
The dust and the heat can drive you from Doha.
Listen for the rain striking rooftops in Seoul.
Some cities I know very well from TV.
New York and Toronto have nothing on Seoul.
His old city drifts in and out of focus.
Fumblingly, Matt hashes reveries of Seoul.
Shall I be still and keep my place as though I'm made from wood?
Shall I keep still and motionless, a statue carved from wood?
I long to join the madness and the tidal surge of sound
but then, a single look from him — enough to turn me into wood.
I am not stone, for deep within a bright and living core
burns beneath my outward guise, the close-mouthed veil of wood.
Shall I keep still and motionless when all around is storm?
Even fluid water has the strength to weather wood.
Shall I keep still and motionless while gales about me blow?
The mighty oak is stripped of leaves, to lay bare naked wood.
I live. I am not dead, nor stone. I am a simple heart
and how I ache inside when I must don that guise of wood.
A simple heart, an ember burns within. One day I'll burn
and all that shall remain is ash when fire consumes the wood.
By night and day, the lady would sit and weave my love
till Lancelot sang his 'tirra lirra' and she would leave my love.
Now you say it was so easy for me to reach and wreck
your heart. Who told you to wear it on your sleeve my love?
The beloved always leaves, James had told you. So when
you learnt to love, you should have learnt to grieve my love.
I tell you that you will find some one better. 'The world lies
disenchanted,' you say, 'now don't ask me to believe my love.'
I see them playing with their pets in Hyde Park. I remember
our conversations. Even dogs have learnt to retrieve my love.
And will you, fortune's favorite son, look around
one day and find there is no one to bereave my love.
Vikram said 'A friend, unlike a lover, does not need to be wooed
by exaggerations;' it is good you never meant to deceive my love.
They ask me what Akhil means, I tell them 'the whole universe,'
it bides time in the name you will not receive my love.
You met her at the park, bathed in moonlight; she's yours.
She thought you were her shining knight; she's yours.
Things started to change, you don't know why.
She lost her perfection, stopped being polite; she's yours.
She wouldn't listen, wouldn't do as she was told.
She didn't know the evil she could incite; she's yours.
Grabbing her wrist and covering her mouth, you
plead, "Do as I say and you'll be alright"; she's yours.
After the first slap, you felt sick, screamed
"I'm sorry!" and held her tight; she's yours.
She didn't leave, but she didn't change her ways.
"Why do you force me to do this every night?" She's yours.
That day she kept pushing, she knew you were tired,
it was her fault for starting the fight; she's yours.
You pushed her against the wall, whispered, "Be quiet,"
and wrapped hands around her neck, strangling her light; she's yours.
Under the moon, you brought her here, buried her.
A stone tablet is all that marks the forest site. She's yours.
A stranger's life's cut short by poaching death;
Her story's got him feeling creeping death.
They said it's just a routine check, but now
She lays without her lover, cursing death.
They're laughing and they're celebrating as
He's one year closer to his pending death.
She sits at home disabled and in pain
While praying, hoping for her nearing death.
And at this hour Fazal's still awake
Evading sleep again, inviting death.
Bury me in nothing but my jewelry
One summer night when crickets are singing
And skin sweats at the touch of silver.
I used to think it showed how little you knew me
To give me silver in winter, so cold.
For myself I never buy jewelry.
Sei Shonagon praises a graceful goodbye
At dawn like a brush of dew on silk
Each whispered syllable dearer than silver.
My lover buys t-shirts of olive and grey
Warm and soft gifts of a practical love;
Skin to skin, we are silver and gold.
Is love what will survive of us?
Tollund man, his torque, Tutenkamun, his mask,
Your Auntie, a line in a song about jewelry.
From the perspective of Canada, Seoul is a distant and alluring place. At the end of Huckleberry Finn, Huck "lights out for the territories." There are no more "territories" on the North American continent, so the disaffected light out for . . . Seoul. Notice how the ends of the first line of each couplet act as a geographical atlas: "Seoul" is reinforced in the first line; then there are references to Canadian cities, a US city, the Pacific, the Gulf, then "TV" and "focus." Matthew Stranach's ghazal is a wanderer's kaleidoscope of places.
"Wood" — Aristotle adopted the Greek term, hyle or "wood," to mean "matter" or "stuff." His argument was that the stuff of which the world is made is unchangeable. But, as a matter of practical experience, we know that wood burns, is transformed into gases and ash. What if the stuff of which we're made has a heart? Trees do, after all. Ash Krafton's ghazal segues well to Akhil Katyal's. Despite Aristotle, wood does burn, love is lost, things do change.
As anyone who has attempted it knows, handling the radif is difficult. The repetition can easily weigh the poem done so that, instead of flowing, it staggers. The ghazals by Akhil Katyal and Tabitha Albright illustrate one aspect of this: What happens if the radif is set off from the rest of the line by punctuation? That gives the radif even more emphasis, which might not be effective. Try reading Akhil's poem with a comma before each instance of the radif: How does that affect your response to it? Now, try reading Tabitha's ghazal with no punctuation before the radif: How does that affect your response?
"Possession" traces the path of a love affair from its romantic beginning in a moonlit park to its gruesome end at a grave in a forest. It reflects the old ballads of the murderous seducer in the context of the modern abuser. It's a matter of who owns whom, with what result, and who takes the blame.
The insistent repetition of the radif is a feature that ghazal poets must wrestle with. One advantage of the tercet ghazal is that it provides more space between instances of the radif, as in Ellen Head's ghazal. She uses several related terms as in the radif positions, "jewelry," "silver," "gold" — these words reinforece each other with an effect similar to that of a literally repeated radif.
This ghazal incorporates several aspects of parting and loss, including the formalized dawn farewells of lovers in feudal Japan, matching the goodbyes and burials that run through this set of ghazals.