Photos for January Stones and April PAD 2012 property of M J Dills (exception 1/16)







Thursday, April 21, 2011

A Ghazal to Love




Write a Ghazal (an ancient poetry form from Persia)
Five to fifteen couplets; first couplet ends with same word, both lines; 2nd line of succeeding lines include word; include author’s name or veiled reference in the last couplet. Ghazals are traditionally passionate and erotic.







I suppose to me, you would speak of things like burning embers of love.
And I have heard you in stark moonlight sing; you sing of love.

Made for black corners and churches and empty streets and hidden cafés and lagoons
Where things are dark as pitch and no one knows our love.

You. Plunge amongst broad, dense, dripping jungle growth and leave me standing alone,
To return with armfuls of bountiful fruits, a declaration of your love.

Your sweet fingers touched my lips and I kissed your hands before you used them to wave farewell
Standing in the road, looking back where I peered through secret veils; you sang to the world, of our love.

What was truthfully being said, sung, trilled, whistled, warbled, hummed?
Did it matter anymore? This thing called love?

The ocean roared like a charging animal and deafened us and jumbled our perceptions
As we strained to understand the gibberish of what we claimed were words of love.

How long do we pay the wages of sin? The perils of a journey of passion,
Our flight to elevated stations where we interpreted our declared love.

Sing the song of memory that whispers and bellows Jodyne to the heavens, to the clouds,
To the sun and the moon, in dark or light, day and night, of whom you love.


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