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My Love

Yes, she made quite an impression at the time. I hope she’s doing well out there in the world, free of drama and surrounded by good people.

My Love

In all my days of love and loss, I never once have pined, my love,
As here I pine beneath the night, longing to know your mind, my love.

Of all the ways these feet have trod, in places bleak and bright, my love,
The way I favor most to go is where we walk in kind, my love.

In all the airy lands abroad, I never once have found, my love,
A peace that permeates my soul, as when we rest entwined, my love.

Of all the treasures I have found, of jasper and of jade, my love,
You are by far the fairest gem, by far my greatest find, my love.

In any clime upon the earth, wherever you may go, my love,
If you will have me, I will join, however trails may wind, my love.

Of all the pain this heart has known, the thought of losing you, my love,
Promotes a deeper terror, still, than thoughts of going blind, my love.

Zahhar can only love your heart, that shines like polished gold, my love,
So patience in this love for you can never fall behind, my love.

This is my 125th ghazal.

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Vapors

She inspired many poems from me during the time I knew her. This is probably among the best of them.

Vapors

This poem has been published in my book an inkling hope: select poems, available in Kindle and paperback formats. Out of consideration for those who have purchased a copy, I have removed it from this post and online viewing in general.

This is my 122nd ghazal.

Publication History:

Muse Apprentice Guild (web-based) — Fall 2003

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Conflicts

As I watched the invasion and occupation of Iraq unfold, I found it impossible not to read between the lines. American citizens had no say on the matter. The corporate-funded Bush administration saw an opportunity to profiteer, and did so without hesitation, remorse, or apology. For me it was impossible not to feel disgusted by it all.

Conflicts

Enlightened nations strive to finalize the fighting;
Corrupted countries seek to formalize the fighting.

Our eyes are shocked by sparks that fabricate a tyrant;
Plantations build machines that specialize the fighting.

In armchair comfort, watch desultory announcements,
As new and modern methods socialize the fighting.

These stucco walls are filled with countless indentations
Where urban drive-by shootings normalize the fighting.

In air-conditioned rooms with ornamental index,
Fat pashas point to maps and analyze the fighting.

We must protect our rights to unfettered consumption;
Such senseless words are used to moralize the fighting.

There waving on the wind in arrogant defiance,
The stars and bloody stripes now symbolize the fighting.

Those ancient words of peace are converted for battle;
Religious reasons rise and catalyze the fighting.

A single life, Zahhar, exemplifying stillness,
A thousand years from now may neutralize the fighting.

This is my 119th ghazal.

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Emaciation

I am going through the poetry I’ve written since ’92 and organizing their titles and properties into a database, as much to learn about Microsoft Access as to organize my writing for keeping track of submissions and for other purposes. When I read this over, I realized it might be worth having here on my blog. I was bold to compare myself with Rumi and Hafez in this ghazal, especially considering my abilities at the time I wrote this, but it does have its redeeming qualities.

Emaciation

Long ago, before her depths fed mad conglomerate needs,
This blood-soaked sand was fertile land that met more moderate needs.

Winds rise up and desert storms destroy ten thousand homes,
And hungry ghosts feed on decay to glut degenerate needs.

All short-sighted might, the Great Machine consumes the world,
Proclaiming all the while to meet the world’s agglomerate needs.

Liberation brought their bane of plunder, ruin and rape,
For raging hearts were finally freed to sate intemperate needs.

Crimson streaks of blood now stain the bedding of our hope,
And fifty bullet holes present the West’s adulterate needs.

Time will sweep the cross and crescent both to forgotten dust;
No-one will remember their strife or their commensurate needs.

Hafez and Rumi, were they here, might have written the same;
You are obliged, Zahhar, to plead the poor’s confederate needs.

This is my 118th ghazal.

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Blast

As destruction was rained down upon Iraq during America’s invasion and occupation the region, I couldn’t help but wonder how many utterly innocent lives were completely destroyed by the carnage.

Blast

Misguided angels struck them on their beauteous heights,
Then rotting frames collapsed in flames from carious heights.

Demons vie for rights to control and destroy the masses,
Commanding herds to slaughter from their devious heights.

Sheets of fire consume in the name of good intention;
A rain of steel tears homes apart from dubious heights.

Huddled against fierce wind and cold on the mountain slopes
Refugees watch their cities burn from various heights.

A wide-eyed child points toward flares and thunderous sounds;
His blood-caked mother cries beneath the furious heights.

Seekers of emptiness fall into abysmal depths;
Seekers of fullness fall flailing from hideous heights.

The simple answer stares the world in the face each day;
Seek neither deep and fetid pits nor glorious heights.

With half the world besieged, Zahhar, by war and famine,
How did you come to live amid such bounteous heights?

This is my 116th ghazal.

Publication History:

Muse Apprentice Guild (web-based) — Fall 2003

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Phrases

Here’s another old ghazal from the archives, slightly modified for flow and imagery. I’m starting to wonder how many of these I’ll end up resurrecting as I go through them. Note that this post is backlogged to the date the ghazal was actually written.

Phrases

Teens drive by in rides that thump out caustic phrases,
And yet nearby brown robins chirp out lyric phrases.

Calling from the minaret, a scowling prophet
Feigns to see with empty words in vatic phrases.

Winding, rippling in the wood and through the meadow,
Streams converge and weave to town with rustic phrases.

Shattered concrete, fallen bridges, broken towers:
Ravaged structures heard the call of seismic phrases.

Pooled in valleys, morning mists floats up the canyons—
Water rising from a lake of magic phrases.

Hiding deep in yellowed fabrics, cracked and tearing,
Wisdom fades into a scrap of relic phrases.

Bald eccentric maples stand by bony poplars;
Autumn shadows speak with dark and mystic phrases.

Shielding life, a veil of blue shuts out the heavens,
Then at night the curtain parts to cosmic phrases.

Call them pearls or gems or beads or what you fancy;
Still, the necklace forms a string of strophic phrases.

Relax, Zahhar, and just write ghazals till your done;
Countless thoughts can still be formed in distich phrases.

This is my 112th ghazal.

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Dancelight

My very first girlfriend studied ethnic dance at UCLA, amongst other things. She was born in Taiwan, but raised in Southern California. Although we were only an item for about a year and a half, she had a tremendous impact on my life in general.

I owe her a lot, actually, for she inspired me to better myself in multiple ways—Everything from the way I talked and carried myself to the way I perceived the world and my place within it. If we never met, I’m sure that I would still be an irrepressible, delinquent teenager, or worse. She was a catalyst for self-improvement, so it seemed fitting to dedicate a ghazal to her even though many years have passed and we have both long since moved on.

Dancelight

For Wennifer

Though countless twirling wonders dance before to bait my heart,
Her dance splits night asunder—brilliance holds elate my heart.

When first her dark eyes opened, all the bashful heavens blushed;
The full moon danced out singing, “Let her gaze gyrate my heart!”

I saw her lightly dancing midst a grove of cherry trees,
Their blossoms rained upon her; scenes as such translate my heart.

A weeping porcelain rose cried, “Once with dancing step she passed;
She picked me up and kissed me; now what love can sate my heart?”

Her midnight jasmine fragrance dances playful on the wind,
And drifts across the rooftops on to stimulate my heart.

She walked down by the ocean where the waves danced at her feet,
The sea said, “Though I fall back, this does not abate my heart.”

One day I heard Zahhar say, “I did not know how to dance,
And though she tried to teach me, I could not locate my heart.”

This is my 111th ghazal.

Publication History:

Muse Apprentice Guild (web-based) — Fall 2003

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Occurrences

Found this hiding in the folder for February, 2003, which contains five ghazals. I managed to polish it off a bit and steady the meter some before posting.

Occurrences

Ridges slope to meet the waves in gradient appearance;
Foliage climbs to each lone peak in variant appearance.

Soft the half-moon’s halo glows in the subtle haze of night,
Where undulating ocean foam gleams salient appearance.

Endless in collapse upon a steady, slow expansion,
Shedding light, the sun maintains a radiant appearance.

Countless shades of blue reveal within the arching heavens
Something more felt than seen in all its ambient appearance.

Ten thousand modes of thought assume that life is nowhere else,
That we alone dream near the rim, a sapient appearance.

Emptiness can only hold the ceaseless apparitions;
Where would we have, without the void, to orient appearance?

All these forms that seem so real are passing just like thought—
Zahhar, you too are simply but a transient appearance.

This is my 109th ghazal.

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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.