ghazal ("poems late at night")

I've returned to writing poems   late at night
once again inviting poems   late at night

with the sky gone dark   the summer-realm turns cool
where's the spark for lighting poems   late at night?

poets surface in L.A.   from months in Asia
strolling streets reciting poems   late at night

where the beauty in the heart has turned to ashes
they're inventing biting poems   late at night

must you dawdle at imagination's doorway?
enter in   delighting poems late at night

all the gods have gone to bed   do you still listen?
where are lovers plighting poems   late at night?

limning lines   where the design connotes a doodle
one desires spiting poems   late at night

don't the juices in the fruit require pressing?
loose the tongue for tighting poems   late at night

ink is black your page is white   but not in luneland
darkling leaves show whiting poems   late at night

lost in dream   have you discovered courtly manners
finding pens politing poems   late at night?

in the knoll of never-was   where truth's an echo
shadows dance   dim-brighting poems late at night

should Ardeo ever reach the shore he sought here
he'll no more be fighting poems   late at night



[verses jotted on a pocketed page, strolling Venice Boulevard in L.A.'s Culver City, my first night back in America]