The meal cooked in spite
sours the stovetop.
A river cascades from the sky -
no one knows what to name it.
A bag of bones in the freezer
saved for the neighbour's dog.
Mumbai, Nairobi, Vancouver -
she sings karaoke, in Hindi, in Simba's Grill.
Once a poem, once a pet, now dust,
now mud beneath the rosemary.
Four words for snow,
but none of them are this.
Author notes
"The link between couplets (five to a poem) is a matter of tone, nuance: the poem has no palpable intention on us. It breaks, has to be listened to as song: its order is clandestine. . . . The ghazal allows the imagination to move by its own nature: discovering an alien design, illogical and without sense - a chart of the disorderly, against false reason and the tacking together of poor narratives." ~ John Thompson, from the preface to Stilt Jack
"Good luck" ~ zara
Rip away.
Comments
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Ghazal is a lovely word until you realize it's pronounced "guzzle."
I called it ghazal because that is what you're supposed to do with ghazals - they're all called ghazal. Not that I've paid a whole lot of attention to certain other aspects of ghazal, but I've placed myself in the position of student here, following the conventions as laid out in the last 20 or so years by fellow Canadians mostly. I have a ways to go to really get the form, but thank you anyway, if you think it's a good poem.
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I was thumbing through McSweeney's Book of Poets picking Poets.
As far as I can tell - this is a Modern English/Traditional Ghazal (as I would define it). i=It appears to have all the correct parts (though quite frankly I think it sucks, it has the refrain, the odd couplets, internal rhyme in the second line of each couplet after the first, and it appears to be about Love)
Ghazal-Head
You no good fork sucker, that's what
You no good backscratcher, that's what.
A blue thumbnail. An odd light fixture. A toy-like hammer.
A glass pitcher. Bend your fingers, that's what.
You're one of those sleepers. Those pod people.
Poking their noses, those nose blowers, that's what.
I could care less for your deluxe vacuum.
Suck your own luck you not good Hooever, that's what.
Gulp, gulp I yelled at your mouth when I saw it walking
Across the room like a no good rumor, that's what.
No count number. Indentured mumbler.
Black shoe stumbler. Beer belly bumbler, that's what.
And I know you know I know and I could care less.
Your ailments into amens; angst into anger, that's what.
Slow down, I told the boy with the knife.
Give me a hug, I told that mother hugger, that's what.
I lied, about it? I loitered too. Like dust.
I did what you did like a no good mirror, that's what.
What about it, po'mouth? You no good goody goody.
What about it, I know what I said. Lover, that's what.
A friend of mine who i showed this too said: What a perversion of a beautiful ancient form, that's what.
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It's quite telling that it's titled Ghazal-Head. I like it, for the way it plays with language, sticks to the rigid conventions of classical ghazal, but takes it to the street. It's a carefully crafted piece, and I have great respect for that.
Where it falls down, in my opinion, is in the very area I'm exploring: the leaping from sher to sher, the evasion of logic. To me that's the essence of ghazal, and this poem by Terrance Hayes is missing it.
To each their own.
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I will know more about the Ghazal then anything else in my life soon (and that is really that I'll know nothing definitively). I'm done here. I swear.
I found this thought in several areas:
Although every Sher should be an independent poem in itself, it is possible for all the Shers to be on the same theme or even have continuity of thought. This is called a musalsal ghazal, or "continuous ghazal". The Ghazal "Chupke chupke raat din aasun bahaanaa yaad hai" is a famous example of this.
And actually found that thought in several areas - that that type of non-logical "leaping" might not have actually even really been part of some of the Persian ghazals at all since separation, love or illicit love seem to have been the primary driving "force" of the form.
I think, based on what I've read, you've opted to play inside a form that is so complicated it matters not in English what one does with it because there are so very many deviations in the English and the Persian.
Sorry lost connection again last night, I really need to find out why that is happening.
Tuesday. Bleh.
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it's the spitting sounds and the river that does it... they hiss and spool.. i love these gazals...
tis good to see you being connected yet illogical, a woman with thoughts... yes
grand
Gilly.x
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Oh....hey...I LIKE this.
The river cascading from the sky is most familiar here in the NW eh? We ought to have a name for those deluges...like Salmon Rain...or well...something. If Eskimos can have 40 words for snow...I think we're entitled.
"Once a poem, once a pet, now dust,
now mud beneath the rosemary."
Very ...hmm....sensitive.
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