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A minute green insect hides itself in bubbles,
Between blades of grass holds a tension in bubbles.
A first feathered creature fell, pressed into fossil,
Leaked over drill bit operations in bubbles.
Why won't you talk like we did on that Sunday? What?
Why should you put your emotions in bubbles?
She pulled his phonemes up to the rise of her breast,
He suckled a wet adoration in bubbles.
First was the vacuum and indeterminacy
Burrowed in a space's extension in bubbles.
An aquarium pane shows, swimming, faded fish
Circling, forgetting, trailing motions in bubbles.
Church light scatters spectrums on tiles and corners,
A mop-man's circumnavigation in bubbles.
An elephant thigh was cleaved open to muscle
Bleeding magenta lineations in bubbles.
Eye contact, Adam, let us press hands to our lips
To tell one another of motion in bubbles.
All day long they work so hard,
Till the sun is going down.
— Sam Cooke, "Chain Gang"
Rich addicts attend meetings, crack-heads serve time, in the end.
File j-walking, with pleasure, under true crime, in the end.
To ward-off houseflies, Mexicans smear juice down brown lips, thumb
Cold rinds past glass bottlenecks: beer served con lime in the end.
Search ashtrays, couch cushions: stray hair, dust, toast crumbs, stuffing,
But starving artists never find one goddamn dime in the end.
Anonymous, our most prolific scribe, sold said film rights, while poor
Dead Keats searched round poles for metered rhymes in the end.
God hopes to retain his silent title. Bet tag-team belts
Go to live human mannequins, white-gloved mimes, in the end.
Odds on writing eternal verse? Even bookies keep firms
On retainer to crunch such numbers: all prime, in the end.
When push comes to shove, clubs need bouncers, tenders to keep tabs
On barstool prophets: crooks rise to crawl through slime in the end.
Cops use plastic cuffs for protests, tasers on traffic stops.
Who stands to profit from free needles? Tar's grime, in the end.
Prayer remains our first dead letter, the sun some souvenir.
Gold roads to heaven get paved in bones: cheap climb, in the end.
Artwork means just long-division sans remainders, bottom lines
Dug by chain gangs, mute extras, till credits chime-in: The End.
A wayfarer is killed by deadfalls.
I've built my world, but there is a flaw,
There are few lies trapped inside its walls.
In the peace of the dawn there are flaws.
With resounding love I paint the rain,
My hand, my skills are not without flaw.
Stars cry their golden tears, and I thrill
I write, I seek my words, but I'm flawed.
It's the truth — I have been seeking ill,
There is no thing perfect, free from flaws.
A part of Paradise in my arms forever,
The one who's closer or a perfect stranger?
The song of a heart played on a harp comes from far
Away. Do positive feelings make one stronger?
The unbeatable disease makes one so bitter,
For a lifetime, he'll be for himself a stranger.
I walked in his shoes — the illness will devour
Bits of self respect, it rarely makes one stronger.
So all I wish in this life is an Eden near,
The chance to know myself, to not be a stranger.
The melodiousness of a sigh brings out
Another fateful cry for disobedience.
Tonight a moon filled with yearning speaks loudly out,
There will be more nights of silent obedience.
Assassins of craving you bring stormily out,
Composer of melodious breathes I obey,
The harmonized bodies trapped in delight, they shout
With corvine wildness, they will always disobey.
Beyond the melting point . . . climaxes overstay,
Making it worth while this disobedience.
Never break the sweet heart that gives love, for in it is all that comes from above.
That dear one who fits you like a glove is all that you need for having sweet love.
When days are long and thereof no song, you'll look to the new, but you'll know it's wrong.
The heart in your chest will give a shove, for the heart in your hand comes from above.
When the heart's song becomes old and stale, they say love's flame will grow cold and will fail.
This is to confuse passion with love; none can extinguish what comes from above.
So many times, I've heard the lament, "Thought I had love, now, don't know where it went."
Passion ran cold and skipped out thereof; sadly, they mistook passion's heat for love.
Passion is a disquieting thing; it flits here and there and is want to sting.
The oft' sought grail is that stern stuff: love; it does not run when harm comes from above.
Love and passion are siblings, you see; offspring of emotion, deep as the sea.
Together, come they on the wings of a dove — one is fire, and the other is love.
The fire is bright, exciting and warm; the other smiles with a timid charm.
Overshadowed is this gentle love, but it is the gift that comes from above.
From the flesh, the blazing passion springs and is as mortal as the fire it brings.
When it burns away, what's left is love, that great little gift that comes from above.
Love is a strong wall that stands the test; through misfortune and loss, it's no mere guest.
It's the firm, unflinching element, love, that let's you know there's something above.
The mind, said Spinoza, is of the body, but I say love is not so shoddy.
From body, mind; from mind, love; twice removed is this beautiful thing we call love.
Not the stoker of the heaving breast; it's the hand that gives the weary head rest.
Not the beastly grunt the herd calls love; it's that stolid gift that comes from above.
That one beside you, that heart so pure, who braves life's shocks and has always stood sure;
That's the one who holds the gift from above; break not the sweet heart that gives you love.
Every time I read Adam McAlpine Clark's "Ghazal in Extension," I think of quantum foam. an association that is likely personal to me — although, if you read the poem with quantum foam in mind, you'll find new resonances (or uncertainties) in it. The fifth couplet, of course, does suggest cosmology, so maybe my association is not so far off.
Doug Cox's "End Times" illustrates well how the radif can shift and change meaning from couplet to couplet; both denotation and connotation are fluid and shifting. In the same way, tracing the shifts in the monorhyme (qafiya), you will discover meanings that flare, flicker, and flow.
Is the world flawed, or is it "my" world? Sibel Catana rings five changes on the theme of a flawed life-world. The theme fascinates: a therapist asked me once, "Is the world safe or dangerous?" (I don't believe that was a koan, either.) The dichotomy is too simple but not Sibel's ghazal. Note that, in the middle of each line of a couplet, there is a pair of words that "rhyme" in meaning: "killed/world," "lies/dawn," "love/skills," "tears/words," "truth/perfect." By "rhyme," I mean the tension of meaning in each of these pairs, and then that tension in the context of the couplet.
A stranger forever: Using a pair of rhyming words as alternate radifs is a promising direction for ghazals in English: it eases the constraint of repeating the identical word or phrase and each word in the pair enriches the other. In this ghazal, there is also the pleasure of microrhymes at the end of the first line of each couplet. These microrhymes play a role similar to the monorhyme and also add sonic glue to the radifs.
Even with the "same" word or phrase used as the radif, variations are possible. Varying the part of speech is one; varying the preceding words is another. (See Joshua Gage's essay for some suggestions on the monorhyme or qafiya.)
David Quentin Dauthier pushed the lines of "Break Not the Sweet Heart" to a great length for poetry in English. Whitman, Ginsberg, Jeffers, and others have used very long lines successfully, but their poems fall into the category of "free verse." While not having scanned each line of this ghazal in detail, I find a norm of 18 – 20 syllables and about eight stressed syllables a line. Perception of stress can vary among readers due to the overly simple nature of conventional explanations.
In 2006, I wrote some blog entries on meter and rhythm in poetry; "Voice in Poetry" would be a good place to start if you're interested.
Long, metrically regular lines in English tend to awkwardness or to break into shorter units. In this ghazal, Quentin has used internal rhyme in addition to the double radif of "above" and "love." More complex than the "standard" Persian ghazal, this one shows one way to sustain long lines in English poetry.