Ghazal 25

Pour a glass with those hands of yours, my love

Pour it and let things take their course, my love

The muezzin has just given the midnight call

But few men prostrate on the floors, my love

Some turn east, some west, some look to the stars

but my compass is at your doors, my love

Whatever’s poured gets a rim of froth and foams

even when the best of them pours my love

So you too will fill the glass with emptiness

half headiness and half remorse, my love

The night’s a barbed flash of long blue lightning

and the earth burns its bridges and mores, my love

Choice

Beyond
the tavern doors
rivers run wide; it needs
nothing to walk the mud banks there
unshod.


Inside
there's love and wine
the deep cups, loud laughter,
divine death-life; your lashes sharp
in sleep.



I have had ghazals and other eastern forms on my mind lately, so borrowing and building from there.




Shared with poets for Form for All @ dVerse where cinquains are being written tonight.









 

A smidgen of unrequited always makes it sing

I’ve written your name into too many ghazals, and sung

them all alone, and hummed them in a strange tongue;
but I have stood outside silent beneath your window
too fearful to raise my voice and take the plunge

 

perhaps you don’t know; perhaps you’ve known all along

that diehard habits are made out of silence and song
I have wandered centuries lost in these strange alleys
swollen the ranks at your window as part of the throng.

 

And I have come to a stage where it matters nothing

whose part’s to stand silent, and who gets to sing
the songs are there somewhere, lyrical behind my breath
and I don’t much care who sees my silence pulsing.

 

Whether you open your window and ask someone in

from the millions here is anyway uncertain;
ghazals and loyalty are now somewhat outdated
and patience no longer a virtue when worn thin;

 

so what does it mean? will no more ghazals be written?

will some other name now pulse at the point of this pen?
Not at all, just that I’ll write and hum them at home;
passing by your window I won’t look to check if it’s open.







 

Happy Diwali!

I write your name

in lamp flames and
card game winnings;
the moth-wing night
flaps, clings to light.
I still write you
in bright gold hues
in star-blue cues
into the dark.
The fire sparks flare
their marks above
I write love in
each rough moment,
each event, all
that’s sent is blessed.



It's Diwali in a couple days and this is my attempt to celebrate it in Than Bauk, a Burmese poetry form.


Shared at FormForAll @dVerse