Night Ghazal

NaPoWiMo -

Day 20 - Today, let’s try writing a ghazal.  Ghazals are an ancient Persian poetic form, and they are a good way of trying to let go of prose-like sense when writing poems. Ghazals are composed of couplets – about five to fifteen, so they’re short. But that doesn’t make them easy! The first couplet of a ghazal introduces the theme, which traditionally tends toward longing, erotic or otherwise. Both lines of the first couplet end in the same rhyming word or phrase. Then the second line of each succeeding couplet uses that rhyming word or phrase as well. Traditionally, you’re supposed to include your name, or a veiled reference to it, in the poem.

Ghazal

Amid morning light I yearn for the night,

Creativity and mystery lives for the night.

Others reach to the day, fear what appears black,

but I find comfort as I lean for the night.

Poems, paintings and vision and are small in the day,

yet stay strong and bright, alive for the night.

When will the world awake to these dreams,

which haunt the rose ones who wish for the night?

The earthlings are troubled and restless alone,

Come join in the life which lives for the night!

Overheard In The Ladies Room

NaPoWiMo – Day 19 - Conversation is grist for the poetry mill: overheard conversation especially: Today’s challenge is to write a poem inspired by something you’ve overheard. Maybe it’s some phrase your mother uses a lot. Maybe it’s what the bus conductor said this morning over his loudspeaker

Overheard in the Ladies Room

He has a voice,

you know, that kind of voice

that makes a lady say,

I could do, would do

anything, willingly,

as long as he would talk to me.

He has a face,

you know, the kind of face

that makes a woman say,

I'd shave my legs -

most everyday

up all the way

If only he would...

And smile

he has a smile

that lights his eyes and

makes a body realize

he has been, could be, may be,

up to something you might do

if only he would smile at you.