The Ghazal Page
March Equinox Issue, Page 2
- Eternal Return, Robert Gifford
- The Poetry Lesson, Patrick Cosgrove
- Cartoon figures etched in ecstasy, W. M. Rivera
- Rhythm, Pamela O’Shaughnessy
- Hour Glass Ghazal, Sue Melot
Eternal Return
Robert Gifford
All that is real is rough-cut and new
The fire of love is hottest when new
Ice claws to the root, hungry for thin green life
From frigid soil, tender shoots arise anew
Burned to the heart of being, beyond good and evil
From ashes, let the phoenix arise once more anew
Pale corpses in a muddy trench, glisten by the light of flares
Amid thunder of mortars, machine guns, vengeance flows anew
Six a.m. — the alarm hurls tomorrow into now
The labor of Sisyphus begins each day anew
Youths in white robes dripping by the riverbank
Flesh mortified, shivering souls born anew
Every darkness is midwife to dawn
Nothing is real until it is new.
The Poetry Lesson
Patrick Cosgrove
and then I asked my teacher ‘Master, teach me to write a gavel.’
‘I think you mean ghazal’ he replied ‘but it’s pronounced ghuzzle.’
Eyes half closed, he sighed to himself, ‘Mmmm … ghuh-zzzle.
God I love that voiced velar fricative … ghuh-zzzle … ghuh-zzzle.’
‘Now a gavel’ he continued‘ is a wooden mallet — its sound keeps
order in a courtroom. The thing you write, the poem, is a ghazal.’
‘Some rules: include a rhyme, a fixed refrain (the radif), long lines
and no enjambement — each couplet stands alone in a good ghazal.
‘Gosh! Didn’t realise this teaching lark was such thirsty work —
pass me that bottle of wine.’ He tipped it back and guzzled.
‘BUUURRRRPPP … Tell me, do you remember that couple I taught,
Gaz and something? I think her name began with an ‘e,’ Gaz and El?’
‘Elizabeth — Gary and Elizabeth Bailey — Lizzie for short’ I replied.
‘Ah yes Lizzie’ he said, ‘the strange, tall girl with a taste for gazelle
Or was it dik-dik? Zebra? — some sort of bush-meat. Anyway Patrick,
that Lizzie Bailey’ he winked at me, ‘now she could write a ghazal.’
Cartoon figures etched in ecstasy
W. M. Rivera
I draw women naked, cartoon figures etched in ecstasy.
Raw fantasy exposes their sex emerges wet with ecstasy.
My felt pen opens eyes and ends up thighs. I impose poses,
virtual shapes impossible, high-end angles, curved in ecstasy.
I love to sketch soft figures, orgasmic kisses lovely misses
fixed in paper bliss. I marvel at what seems pure ecstasy.
I learned to fancy Venus mounts from eight-page XX books,
Comic-strip images for the curious child eager for ecstasy.
Up’s the way it feels, moments at the summit of surreal.
I flex and push the limit each time harder, lost in ecstasy.
Each view expands, the heart explodes like meadows bursting,
Volcanoes oozing lava women in their ecstasy.
The distant disappears; I write initials in the pubic curls
WMR draws near, closest ever, perfect ecstasy.
Rhythm
Pamela O’Shaughnessy
To speak to a woman, a love-struck man must find the right rhythm.
The ghazal is born; but how does she respond — what is her rhythm?
Thunder; he covers his ears, hears the heart-thud, then drops his hands;
a splitting sky outside is better than this frail inner rhythm.
Shutters close, light-shafts pierce the gloom. A woman swallows whiskey
and cannot see the casket-bearers, marching past in dour rhythm.
Let us mark our passage with a few words scrawled on the cave-wall:
we feasted and slept warm in our furs, once we caught nature's rhythm.
We love, we die, why waste time with worry; let's enjoy the show,
says Pam, and turns to watch the dancers — what brilliant color, rhythm!
Hour Glass Ghazal
Sue Melot
Over primavera, rain heaven-sent thyme.
Nanoseconds gather reams of evident time.
Can you feel the pulse of minutes in roiling surf?
Crystalline tones — an undulating carpet — bent time.
Run like a lynx at the speed of light, run like a …
Do not go gently into — make sure you dent time.
Read life in reverse, towards novel beginnings!
Does the previous exist; can one prevent time?
As an hour glass sifts sands. So we sense falling.
At final innings, who does not resent time?
An onrush of remaining grains over the glass.
Rich in possibilities, the young, flaunt time.
Running to catch the train of light — lurch to a stop —
The conductor yells — next stop — city of absent time!
At the edge of black holes, horizon events hover.
Rush toward mystical cities — reinvent time.
Rivers like arrows may curve in all directions.
Will www.velocities one day circumvent time?
A Susan persona plays space variations.
Similar nests — interstellar twins — imprint time.