Ghazal

              Walking the beach in Avalon, I reach out 
              to him but back to you, the lake, then, the blood red moon at our backs. 

              This could all end on a clear night, warmth rising, 
              no blanket, unlit fire, green fingers of hyacinths reaching. 

              Today, two grown men doing construction work 
              were wearing little newspaper hats, two stories up, like loose kites. 

              The radio announcer agrees.  We have so much to learn 
              about the weather on Mars.  No rain.  Heat. Brush fires. 

              The heartbeat of the fetus was slow, distant, 
              muffled by layers of flesh and worlds of fluid between us. 

              I have been thinking about this a lot.  I can not figure out 
              if it was a joke, or normal in some way.


              Ann Russek

     

              *         *          *
        

              about the poem:

              "I had an interesting letter from a friend who was living and teaching 
              in Bulgaria.  I tried to edit it and capture some of her phrases, 
              shaping them into a poem.  I failed to come up with anything that didn't 
              sound as though it was simply chopped up prose.  I was reading John Drury's 
              Creating Poetry and came across the middle eastern poetry form, the ghazal.  
              It is basically five unconnected couplets.  I dug out the letter from 
              Bulgaria and four other 'failed' poems and took the lines I loved best 
              and arranged and rearranged until my 'Ghazal' seemed to take on some meaning."



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