ghaZaleRy

I got an email this morning from Chivo
“Hey brother could you tell me a bit about this Ghazal???”


I sent him what Harrison said on the subject . For me ghazals became a reservoir for concentrated moments or surprise


They have been at times intimate and at others universal
Its easier for me to say what is not a ghazal


This is not a ghazal. Because I don’t think they are explanations
but an experience or a revelation followed by a leap, leaving a mood


Vik suggested a choosing of some of our favorite lines over the month
Picking just five couplets was difficult out of multiple ghazals


This has been lots of fun. And I would be into trying out other
short forms, inside or outside of poetry

El V

i overheard a sick bird complaining to a friend about the end
and how even in the next life he'll have to have wings.


“hurry up and cook the eggs!” exclaimed a red faced Maria
“i can’t bear the thought of them turning into chickens.”


riding on the elevated train, it's circular here
you can never get to where you weren't.


bright lights, clean stores, unbearable traffic...
what are all these dropped ceilings hiding?

i wear my father like a mask,
Gilbert & Sullivan will never know it's me!


La H.L

"Keep watch, don't sleep tonight," he cries to me.
I just want to fall asleep in your lap.


Another mystery sprawls out on the lazy boy.
She flips the channels and ignores our questions.


There are gym shoes, taxis, and staplers in every color.
The rainbow left its lover in the bathtub smoking cloves.


all lotion is whitening lotion. all models are white.
drink milk while you're pregnant and you will get white babies.

because all the way out here
i've got the american and they've got the dream (still)


El H

Humanista
do these things have to be two line bitties?


If you never spoke out of turn or unpreparedly,
How could you be ready when the proper time comes?


What if the trees decided not to grow leafs this year?
Who would be the first to notice?


In the wee hours, when I whispered of my lazy secret
You laid there, stroking my arm, and admitted you too loved the snooze button

I want to move to another continent
Where everyone I meet will know something I don't

Plus one from El moi

i woke-up after having someone else’s dreams. I think they died
or were trying to hide it.

there was a woman’s shoe left on an atoll, a story of a white biplane
in a lake. kites vanishing in the sun

rain is so simple, shaped by direction, a single ambition, circulation
a depth stars can not penetrate

a bus door opened as I walked by. a recording drifted out; next stop: “Naraganset.”
her hair would smell of the sea there. we’d meet clamming, and would dance by a fire

oars break. night devours our limbs. bones sink. track was laid to the edge
of the water. some turned back and tidied up the depot. others began to row

god was easy to kill. America on the other hand
has got a chest full of butterflies