A drizzle of ghazals

'Water' was the theme of the latest Challenge issued by the online Ghazal Page journal. The ghazals for the Water Challenge were selected by guest editor and Kapiti Coast-based, New Zealand poet Mary Cresswell. Among the 12 ghazals by American, Canadian, and New Zealand writers are two I wrote which were originally published in Tongues of Ash – Winds and Time and All in a Day's Work.

Tuesday Poem: Variations on an early turning

Five days of rain, bitter gales
mass desertion of leaves
bedraggled blackbird, savage at
the last apple’s heart
pecking a cadenza for rain’s bolero.

Days of unseasonal cold too
snow on the hills, an early turning
as my own winter starts
with skirls of slurry and sleet
from the pipes that plumb to my heart.

In a boy’s body, after hard running
I remember lying listening
to ground-bouncing, pounding timpani
unaware the heart’s sound
will one day desert the body.

And you my love
try to mask your concern
but your heart rides tandem with mine
and taps a discordant descant
for my drug-induced adagio.

Today, for a heartbeat of time
the day mutes rain’s tattoo
unravels a sodden skein
from the sullen blanket of sky
lets through a quaver of white.

Not enough blue sky to make
a sailor a pair of pants
your father would say
before his proud heart surrendered
to time’s savage pecking.

Though long enough to display
the latency all days have
for light, warmth, death’s abstention
for playing arpeggios of hope
in a heart’s winter garden.

The recent change of season here in NZ - snow, rain, gales - reminded me of an early winter a few years ago. It coincided with a personal health scare. I wrote this poem at that time and it was published in Tongues of Ash.

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Tuesday Poem - The Listeners by Walter de la Mare

"Is there anybody there?" said the Traveller,
Knocking on the moonlit door;
And his horse in the silence champed the grass
Of the forest's ferny floor;
And a bird flew up out of the turret,
Above the Traveller's head:
And he smote upon the door again a second time;
"Is there anybody there?" he said.
But no one descended to the Traveller;
No head from the leaf-fringed sill
Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes,
Where he stood perplexed and still.
But only a host of phantom listeners
That dwelt in the lone house then
Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight
To that voice from the world of men:
Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair,
That goes down to the empty hall,
Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken
By the lonely Traveller's call.
And he felt in his heart their strangeness,
Their stillness answering his cry,
While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf,
'Neath the starred and leafy sky;
For he suddenly smote on the door, even
Louder, and lifted his head:--
"Tell them I came, and no one answered,
That I kept my word," he said.
Never the least stir made the listeners,
Though every word he spake
Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house
From the one man left awake:
Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup,
And the sound of iron on stone,
And how the silence surged softly backward,
When the plunging hoofs were gone. 


I started thinking the other day about the poems that were taught to me, brought to me at school by good teachers, the ones that hooked me into poetry. This poem, this poet, was one of those.

Tuesday Poem: Road Cricket

Driving through town

listening to the cricket

I saw a man

in the road’s grassy middle

about to thread a three-lane needle

with his body

glass, metal, flesh, blood

He danced ahead

like a batsman at the bowler’s end

just before the leather leaves

the bowler’s hand

then scuttled back

to bide another chance

walk, run, dive, swallow

You fool, I thought

you bloody bunny

as my own life’s risky runs

replayed for me right then

though I knew on his far crease

there was no-one looking out to call

YES! NO! WAIT! …sorry 


I've only ever played cricket once in my life. That was when I was a university student more years ago than I'd like to admit. It was a social game between the 'Onslow Street Onslaughts' (the team I was roped in to make up the numbers for) and a team from a local pub - the 'Caledonian Allstars'.

The game was played somewhere in rural Canterbury on a hot summer Saturday. I remember there was a shed, kegs, a concrete pitch, long grass, large trees, sheep droppings, and a set of rules which bore some likeness to the real game's ones. From that one experience, I went on to love watching cricket. I love its mercurialness, how it can unfold in unexpected ways, the real-life parallels.

A much later incident I observed, which is described in the first stanza above, was the genesis for 'Road Cricket'.

The result of the game I played in? An unexpected and last over victory to the Onslaughts, of course. (This particular claim can be verified by a friend of mine who played in that game and went on to become an international test cricket umpire. We wouldn't both claim a win that wasn't now, would we? That wouldn't be cricket.)

Visit Tuesday Poem for more poems this week and also check on the progress of Tuesday Poem's third birthday rolling jazz poem.

Tuesday Poem: The lawyer’s eulogy at the funeral of a client

Good afternoon, my name is

Titus Loebloe from the practice

Loebloe, Shalloe and Sharpe.

I didn’t know Eunice well

but she was my client.

She used to worry a lot

and ring me up all the time

as you do when

you’re getting past it.

Well, the clock was ticking

at both ends of the phone

I tell you.

I would like to use

this opportunity

to acquaint possible

beneficiaries of the will

with some of our

investment services.

If you are inclined

as Eunice is – sorry, was

to hand over her savings to us

lock, stock and wine-box

I can honestly say

what a pleasure that would be

for both of us.

We have a number of

high-risk, low-return schemes

for you to consider

and I guarantee that

we will make more money

out of this than

you ever dreamed.

Just in case you are wondering

how successful I have been

that’s my car outside – the Volvo

I know it looks a bit like a hearse

but it cost a fortune.

Now, you should also be aware

that it’s not too late for Eunice

to donate her organs

to medical research –

just sign the sheet on the way out

and I will arrange it.

I have a number of large hosp…

I mean, keen buyers lined up

and what they will pay

will more than offset

the cost of re-opening the coffin.

Before I finish I would like to say

its been a pleasure

and will be more so

once you put $250 in the plate –

my fee for providing you each

with this wonderful advice.

--

In February 2005, The New Zealand Consumer reported that a lawyer charged a bereaved family for time spent in attending the funeral of a client. The Wellington District Law Society defended the practice.  The poem is my satirical take on the sorry story. 

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Tuesday Poem: Resilience

Mathematicians      have worked out

how to calculate       the bounciness of a ball:

(the coefficient of this  x  the cosine of that)

+   the differential of today's weather     all ÷ by

a piece of string      (and the speed of the train)

=  the same as     dropping different balls together

and seeing which ball     has the longest bounce

Measuring how well     a person will rebound

after being dropped on     is still being worked on:

some believe     it has something to do with

the thickness of their skin           whether their stretching

reaches a breaking point     or results in       withstanding

whether they can fight and flee          how many times
the person has returned to a vertical position before


I am feeling a little guilty for not having posted on Tuesday Poem for two whole months! Excuses - Xmas, grown-up children shifting house, work busy-ness, summer, grandchildren, checking out that the Hawkes Bay still makes wine...writing poetry???

Anyway, today's poem arose from contemplation on a phenomenon of recent (quaky) times.

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Tuesday Poem: February 22nd, 2011

The earth roared, jack-hammered
bucked like a brahma bull
at a rodeo.

After, we waded through a field of shards
found open space, moved the glass-grazed car
away from the bruised and broken building.

During that afternoon of terra not-so-firmer
we stood around, shivered, hugged the ground
comforted those from the third floor

whose sky had fallen on their heads.
We remarked on a distant tower, three sheets
to no wind, shedding bricks each new tremor

saw plate glass bow and flex, lights oscillate
in a luxury-car showroom, watched would-be
CBD traffic becalm itself in a sea of sirens.

I remember now a grey sky
the absence of cell phone sounds
how no birds sang.


Poems from my Canterbury quakes experiences are starting to insist on air-time. This one was written last month.

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