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Openings

Empty spaces have always intrigued me, especially when framed around a striking foreground.

Openings

Faces fade as lovers share a common glance in the void;
Sifting through the crowd, they meet, alone to dance in the void.

Falling from the azure depths, at one with wind in the heights,
Bold skydivers pull the cord and play with chance in the void.

Horses thunder through the fields—look how they race with the clouds!
Boundless freedom sings where neighs and whinnies prance in the void.

Distant rumbles barely heard in silent depths of the night
Leave a moonlit trail that gleams a silver lance in the void.

Stark against the setting sun and wild crash of the sea,
Growing lone, a cypress holds a mighty stance in the void.

Beating midnight wings in time, a raven lights on a branch;
Soft, a sable feather falls, then floats askance in the void.

Strive each day to wake, Zahhar, and lift the veil from your sight—
Shifting dreams can only serve to break your trance in the void.

This is my 108th ghazal.

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Transfigurations

A random write that has an abstract, metaphysical feel and focus. There’s really not much more to say about it, except that I think it turned out pretty well.

Transfigurations

Sprawled across a dusty couch, a fiend shoots dope in silence;
Lone amidst a warring world—one way to cope in silence.

Underneath the shifting heights, in tempest roar or sunshine,
Sitting on a rock, a monk expands his scope in silence.

On a hillside, old madrones unfold their hues to heaven;
Probing roots fan out and weave beneath the slope in silence.

Chanting in cathedral gloom with eyes fixed on the rafters,
Solemn voices rise and fall as thoughts elope in silence.

Tender faces turn in vain on seeking love or counsel;
Countless children walk the streets alone to mope in silence.

Shadows phase in depthless dark like phantoms but imagined;
Lost amid the shifting forms, the spurned ones grope in silence.

Clumsy creatures claw in fear and strike with fangs of venom—
Shield your heart with care, Zahhar, and hold each hope in silence.

This is my 107th ghazal.

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Havoc

A lot of my ghazals have explored the havoc of dukkha, or karmic suffering. In a way my life has been a study of this phenomenon, for I have striven to gain insight into its workings enough to maybe begin to pull free of it. But for most, myself likely included, even this process takes many comings and goings.

Havoc

Why are grown men sighing? Fear is dim by nature.
Why are children crying? War is grim by nature;

Angry hornets swarming—countless stinging voices;
Kingdoms manifest a battle-hymn by nature.

In this swelling madness, hearts are weighed to breaking;
Overwhelming sadness runs abrim by nature.

Rains can never cleanse the earth of all our bloodshed,
Blades and bullets slaying round her rim by nature.

Those who wake from dreaming, like the fading seagull,
Leave no tracks in parting, flying trim by nature.

Most are lost in chaos, like the flood-tossed salmon,
Helpless bound to homing where they swim by nature.

Providence, though gentle, has been known to ravage—
You will learn, Zahhar, to know her whim by nature.

This is my 106th ghazal.

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Release

Understanding comes without invitation and knocks at the door, and yet she’ll often elude a lifetime of the most sedulous efforts to find her. She is a mystery deeper than the Marinas Trench, darker than the void between galaxies. One can only put himself in the path of experience and knowledge, then hope for the best.

Release

When letting go of vain understanding,
One begins to attain understanding.

In the desert, a sea of sand stretches;
Wind bestows to each grain understanding.

If one will not wake from shifting dreams,
What good is it to gain understanding?

A rolling ocean of flourishing pines
Rose from earth to sustain understanding.

When one holds a whisk or a staff upright,
Speaking will only stain understanding.

When lightning flashes across a dry night,
The sky is soon to rain understanding.

What hinders the mind will hinder all else;
Why struggle to retain understanding?

Rivers can swell till, flooding, they burst
Banks not meant to contain understanding.

All seekers find the way in due time,
And then release inane understanding.

Gray grasses bend in myriad patterns;
They yield rather than strain, understanding.

The traveler on the road to heaven
Is filled with an arcane understanding.

The rosebud opens itself to the sky,
Not wanting to restrain understanding.

Be still, Zahhar, there is peace in the wind;
Never prize nor disdain understanding.

This is my 97th ghazal.

Publication History:

Muse Apprentice Guild (web-based) — Fall 2003

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Tillage

The title, though archaic, should hint at some of the meanings within the sher of this ghazal. Crops cannot be planted in untilled soil, for instance. This word has also been used in the past to denote the fruits of a cultured mind or spirit. Because there is no need for the sher of a ghazal to have continuity, a lot can be done to reflect back to a title such as this.

Tillage

Your words—They drift like drizzle down to bead me;
I stumble through the vacant ways you lead me.

Each night, beneath the shifting gaze of your eye,
I listen for the silent words you feed me.

How can my clay begin to learn its aspect
If your caress will never cease to knead me?

I am for you to harrow or abandon;
Just know my heart longs for your grace to weed me.

I never learned to fence with words like foils,
And so I feared that their misuse would bleed me.

A lone rose sways on arid desert breezes;
Each day it asks the sky, “why did you seed me?”

“Why torment me,” one day I asked, “with your song?”
“Zahhar”, I heard, “deep in your heart you heed me.”

This is my 78th ghazal.

Publication History:

Muse Apprentice Guild (web-based) — Fall 2003

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Destiny

Inspired by the notion that every thing in existence has a path, a calling, to follow. Not just people who realize a sense of personal purpose, but everything—From insects to sentients, pebbles to mountains, meres to oceans, clouds to nebula, asteroids to blue giants. I don’t mean predeterminism, but something else—Something much more subtle.

Destiny

Brooks are weeping gently on each stone, calling;
Soft the wind consoles with a light moan calling.

Autumn leaves float faintly to the ground;
They flitter along in the wind’s drone calling.

Deep in the forest, an ancient falls crashing;
Silent airs pursue its last, lone calling.

Seeds take to soil; clouds nest in tall canyons—
Each heeded the seat of its high throne calling.

Do you wonder where the falling stars land?
They go the way of their last known calling.

What is that sound so difficult to hear?
The silent sound of the heart’s own calling.

Zahhar hears again your delicate voice—
Sweet on the breeze, a subtle tone calling.

This is my 77th ghazal.

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Emanation

It seems to me that “memory” is a very natural radif for the ghazal form. It is something that emanates like light from the unconscious. It is abstract and indefinite, mysterious even.

Emanation

I am that visitor in your faded memory;
We’re threaded as ancient friends in braided memory.

Once, we strolled in talk on emerald hills;
They dried in drought, and have rarely bladed memory.

Together we work to weave this spanning tapestry;
Once more our gilded threads have aided memory.

Monuments of stone bear witness to ages past,
But only your words shine light on shaded memory.

To gain its home, a dove flies tossed in storm,
Its way home deeply locked in jaded memory.

My heart was crushed with anguish, but now you have come
To lift, with a longer past, my laded memory.

Zahhar is again a shuttle in the loom of time,
Yet not the weaver of his graded memory.

This is my 75th ghazal.

Publication History:

Muse Apprentice Guild (web-based) — Fall 2003

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Thoroughfare

This ghazal manifested as I read The Shambhala Guide to Taoism by Eva Wong. There is more discontinuity, or disconnectedness, within this ghazal than is usual for me. At the time, this was also the longest I had written.

The word “way” appears on every line. While this is not a demand of the form, it was an enjoyable exercise, and it made for an interesting poem in the end.

Thoroughfare

Where fragrant lilies beautify the way,
Decaying corpses putrefy the way.

Brilliant sages point the way to heaven,
Yet we in bloodshed rubefy the way.

The way of peace was plain when life began,
Then darkness fell to mystify the way.

When harsh and arid places span the way,
How hard it is to ratify the way!

Rivers flow the way of least resistance—
This fact will ever signify the way.

A vagrant walks the way with dignity,
Yet speaks no words to dignify the way.

Crying skies are not the way of sorrow,
They only serve to pacify the way.

If to the empty center leads the way,
There is no need to simplify the way.

Wind demonstrates the way of roaming wide,
But never tries to justify the way.

Who taught the fowl the way to warmer skies?
How is it that they verify the way?

Compassion is the way within us all,
But we must act to reify the way.

Death cannot endorse the way of living,
Yet also cannot mortify the way.

This dream is but the way of dancing shades;
To trust in this will falsify the way.

Who can hear the way the stars are calling?
They wait for us to stellify the way.

Each time Zahhar collapsed upon the way;
Has been a means to clarify the way.

If you sense a lack of coherency, this is because there is very little of it. A ghazal is not necessarily supposed to be coherent. In fact, most aficionados of the form feel it should be entirely discordant, with qafiya (rhyme) and radif (refrain) serving to stitch the couplets into a sort of collage of verbal thought and imagery. The effect can be powerful, though it doesn’t always settle well with the Western ear.

This is my 74th ghazal.

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Paradox

This is interesting, in a tortured, abstract sort of way. More than ten years after having written it, I’ve just rediscovered this old bit of writing and I feel compelled to share it here as a backlogged post, which should be the day on which it was written.

Paradox

The dream was touched by a protected soul,
And hearts were torn by a rejected soul.

The kindly soul is trampled down, and yet
Malice pervades the most respected soul.

Angry teeth flashed under eyes glazed over;
This face revealed a dark neglected soul.

A scalpel tongue sliced out such acrid words,
All life was bled from that dissected soul.

Rage born of terror broods a bitter bile,
Ruining the will of each subjected soul.

What holds no grief will also hold no joy,
A void that shatters the affected soul.

Mist cannot be marred while crystal fragments—
Both are aspects of the reflected soul.

That darker shadow in the depths of night
In time reveals its own directed soul.

A crazed ceramic pot containing naught
Represents, I hear, a perfected soul.

Patience, Zahhar, for it takes time to heal—
Angels tend to your deeply infected soul.

This is my 67th ghazal.

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Path

I later rewrote this poem under the title, “The Path” (with article).

Path

With breaking dawn, there rose a bright destiny,
Where only the blind could never sight destiny.

Before these atoms even formed the flesh,
This heart was gripped within a tight destiny.

Sloshing in the womb that cursed this life,
I never had the power to fight destiny.

Mid this storm are strikes of realization,
But thunder rattles into flight destiny.

Beating drums mete out a promise within
Until I strain to meet this light destiny.

This dream is battered in the raging rush,
Crashing in rapid rocky white destiny.

The broad and beaten way is trampled bare
By those who from their lives smite destiny.

Don’t lament on how this way’s obscured;
Not even all the winds can write destiny.

Proud slaves of Mammon scoff at those with little,
Yet they are weighed with woe who spite destiny.

Though we may rip from all the earth her beauty,
This sin is not enough to blight destiny.

Braced for the pending break, Zahhar, your tense;
Still you must wait; you cannot cite destiny.

This is my 60th ghazal.

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English Ghazal

I later rewrote this ghazal under a new title, “Ghazal to the Ghazal”.

English Ghazal

The soul its depths may know within the amorous ghazal
So poignant as it may within the dolorous ghazal.

What forms with simple ease in languages of the East
Stands impervious to English, the onerous ghazal.

Dare not disgrace the history and beauty of its form
With bold attempts to reinvent the canorous ghazal.

Well before the very first of English words were formed,
A wonder spread by poets was the prosperous ghazal.

This heart had lost its aspect in the dismal realms of grief
But found its shape anew within the rapturous ghazal.

In time a stone shapes well within the sculptors mindful care;
As such, the mind is honed that works the rigorous ghazal.

Blessed profoundly is the heart and all its depths fulfilled
That strives to form in English mold the decorous ghazal.

The ghazal’s essence flows within the spirit of Zahhar;
Let this be an example of the flavorous ghazal.

This is my 41st ghazal.