As long as I’ve been writing poetry there are only three forms that I wanted to become competent at—haiku, sonnet, and ghazals. Ghazal is by far the older form and the one I understood least, but now I’m ready to at least attempt to sink or swim. Here goes.
THIRTEEN WAYS OF LISTENING TO RAIN
Is grief a group of islands excluded from rain
or a sea whose contents could someday become rain?
“Ki ilhas tem catxupa, ma ka tem txeu txuba?
where Cizé makes island wide smiles if she hums rain.
At this angle of dawn & that density of dusk
yin & yang may not mean zero-sum reigns.
“If I were to cry out which angel would hear me”
— the Necessary Angels circle to drum rain.
As it plunges thru hair to kiss your shoulder blades
don’t forget to sip what one thinks of as plum rain.
If you shift your weight & pin a lover’s hands
—can sugarcane be pressed into a rum reign?
“With vice I hold the mic device, with force
I keep it away of course” we spit to overcome rein.
Can church bells seeking to carry atone—the way
one Monk sought to carry attune—even numb rain?
In this plaza we long to tissue our faces
—a roomy guitar makes a case to strum rain.
In “A Return To Our Usual Truancies”:
why does my Beloved go roadside & thumb rain?
As people come by with broken parchment for tongues
hear the raven pray to bathe in a crumb rain.
Reneg8d tell them, if you know, why [radium,
iodine, & nitrogen] could seem to sum rain?
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