Rambling #24

A different kind of morning pages

What’s the smallest animal you think would be able to sing you a song in a spoken language that you understand, and it would be something of beauty?

Below is a ghazal I’ve written recently. The ghazal has been used for eons, its key components being a refrain in every 2nd line, and a proper, personalized address toward the end. I mean, form can be as nitpicky or as loose as you need it to be, and I’m not here to lecture you on the ghazal.

Ghazal on the eve of narcissism

I’m sitting there listening to you talk about two little bunnies in your backyard
and outside there are these cars that come by playing boom-boom music.

I’m sitting there in the grass by the water listening to you all conduct heartquartets
and outside this fluttering a wild caterpillar is making the journey following tree music.

I’m sitting and watching the computer screen as my grandfather’s funeral is conducted
and outside the stream quits about halfway through music.

I’m sat and there you are telling us the mother of the bunnies is nowhere to be found
and outside my honeysuckle is downstairs asking for something-anything-to-do-for-me music.

I sit on the concrete side of a ramp worrying because you called and hung up shortly
and I missed it so I’m outside texting and calling back and leaving a voicemail music.

I’m sitting and so much of life is happening and so often I am standing or walking or running
and outside there is this wind or even stillness that brushes my ears music.

I sat in the middle seat of a plane and wrote shewontdieshewontdieshewontdie for six hours
and outside my hand I knew she’d already gone and there’s a baby crying music.

I would sit but if I collapse completely would I ever get up and I’m spentdrainfatigued
and I’m outside and there are these flowers around this graveyard music.

I’m sitting on a patio outside speaking to my grandfather for the last time
and he tells me he fears that nobody will be around to tend the flowers of the graveyard music.

I have sat against a wall metaphysically for two years listening to minor-key pianos
and outside my raw soul this energyscourge taunts me all around music.

Sitting, Ah this is what it is like, says Cody, growing older is loss. And losing and loss and
outside losing and loss there is this type of music

that sits outside like beads against ceramic like a sweeping broom when you’ve missed home
and sits against the wall that we rose together and that now you knock down, music.

The ghazal rose to acclaim starting around the 7th century, though scholars suspect earlier. It was largely used in romance, or in larger settings as a type of lineage-recitation. The ghazal has no real size limitations, and as the centuries drew, it elaborated into lengths as far as 100+ lines. The above poem is 24 lines, for context.

Ghazal on the eve of narcissism is also a type of love poem, I would say. Love is not often an easy cross to bear. I think of the Samuel Beckett poem (Shoutout Lauren Swift, as she cued me onto this poem, and I’ve never been able to stop thinking about it) Cascando:

2
saying again
if you do not teach me I shall not learn
saying again there is a last
even of last times
last times of begging
last times of loving
of knowing not knowing pretending
a last even of last times of saying
if you do not love me I shall not be loved
if I do not love you I shall not love

the churn of stale words in the heart again
love love love thud of the old plunger
pestling the unalterable
whey of words
terrified again
of not loving
of loving and not you
of being loved and not by you
of knowing not knowing pretending
pretending
I and all the others that will love you
if they love you

Not a ghazal, and doesn’t serve to illuminate more on form or the structure or histories of ghazal, but does illuminate more on form and structure and the histories of love. If you do not love me I shall not be loved / if I do not love you I shall not love. I mean, when doesn’t love feel like that?

And whose to say this stake of dramatics can’t be felt in all varieties and subspecies of love, aromantic and otherwise? Friend-love, thing-love, the love you share with your family. terrified again / of not loving / of loving and not you / of being loved and not by you.