ghazal: "in the umbral shadows"

Where is the border   between blue and green?
                                                        here in the umbral shadows
where is the ardor   between rue and spleen?
                                                        here in the umbral shadows
it's guru purnima in India
                                            moon mirror in sky   shines bright
where is the mortar   between true and keen?
                                                        here in the umbral shadows
the chirp of the bird is remedial?
                                                  the cough of the car concurs
where is the ember   between has and been?
                                                        here in the umbral shadows
the clashing of schools   if demonstrative
                                            suggests less sense than dolor
doling out tinder   to the evergreen
                                                        here in the umbral shadows
when Raphael's stymied   lend him my shawl
                                            direct him to watch the stream
where is the letter   between world and dream?
                                                        here in the umbral shadows


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[The 1st sentence of this poem's 1st line is borrowed from Ron Silliman's Sunset Debris (appearing in Parmentier, vol. 17, no. 2, June 2008)]

(next morning) ps: this started as a rubai (quatrain), then inched its way to being a ghazal.

ghazal: "final chips"

Are you serious?   I must steal from you   the secret of how to love you?
once pocketed   I might reveal to you   the secret of how to love you

we teeter at edge of absurd designs!   the river a'flood with puzzles
float down   hearing my lone appeal to you   the secret of how to love you

in a gamble that none but you and I would recognize   at this table
final chips await (spin the wheel will you?)   the secret of how to love you

blithe years had passed   we began every sentence blindly   always uncertain
what card quiet hands might yet deal   knew you the secret of how to love you?

illusions ran deep   dim narratives curl & wind out of nightlong dreamstuff
fogged mirrors obscuring what's real   who knew the secret of how to love you?

who dine on despair remain circumspect   what rule of the game mightn't shift?
the more knots undone   the less we'll undo the secret of how to love you

who pray bow resigned who dream lie supine   who imagine ponder clouddrift
stray traces of orange or teal   imbue the secret   of how to love you

the world forgot poetry almost   would we need to reinvent the wheel?
dark language   alike woe & weal   hides too   the secret of how to love you

wave on darkling wave   incessant   fierce   oceanic currents grown fearsome
one offers both sail and keel to you   the secret of how to love you

would Raphael beg like a vagabond?   his notion wasn't to wander
his poetry shows how I feel for you   the secret of how to love you

a perhaps gnomicly buddhistic rubai

I can't quite distinguish   what is called me   from what is called you
please extract in English   what is called me   from what is called you
if tickled pink by the porcupine   of rhetorical death
who'd need to extinguish   what is called me   from what is called you?

ghazal: "these summer days"

Who're chastened will keep   this conversation   just between you and I
we're facing a deep   disintegration   just between you and I

light rain falls gently these summer days   long pool a'flutter with wind
we're viewing no cheap   poor imitation   just between you and I

where nebulous work   oppresses the heart   one hopes to push on through
laid flat by great time's   steep implication   just between you and I

child-like   we should love to unravel   what makes the big clock tick!
half-crazed to unwind   such information   just between you and I

what were you seeking? where fled your purpose?   everything drifts in flux
we're drawn to maintain   a slack expectation   just between you and I

at the Guanyin Temple   north of Beijing   pilgrims and tourists stroll
who straggle notice   her indication   just between you and I

sharing cigars at a lavish dinner   talk turns lively and loud
I fail to follow   fate's dissertation   just between you and I

people mention   the Sichuan earthquake   9.6 it attained
things pique surprise   or wreak devastation   just between you and I

in the broader gamble   my small wagers   turn pale faces sunward
does loving   differ from disputation?   just between you and I

I was slated once to become a doctor   page from some lost tale
who rips the page   goes soon on vacation?   just between you and I

who arrive in life   all naked and lost   become more lost than found
while obscure remains   the destination   just between you and I

joyous cries if few   in this market-place   where misery's banal
quiet laughter brews   amid ululation   just between you and I

you resign yourself to wind and rain   you surrender to time's play
does Krishna smile on   your resignation?   just between you and I

you tour the globe   but not as a tourist   atoms twirl as they must
Columbus loathes circumnavigation   just between you and I

born in the west   we abide in the east   if all the world's a stage
this play plots many a motley station   just between you and I

alike trompe l'oeil   the scene is stunning   why should sages dub it
the poster-child of prevarication?   just between you and I

held the realm of dream merely dream   could illusion admit an aim?
philosophers   love pure complication   just between you and I

who fall into   the weave of your story   feel the tug of your yarn
hook line and sinker   aid meditation   just between you and I

each day we attend sweet sessions of thought   each night we drift in dream
who gently frames   the interrogation   just between you and I?

July grows warm   I depart the office   sitting a while outdoors
God hides from me   when's our assignation?   just between you and I

this luxury of perusing the stream   is human   chirps the bird
the stream of thought   relates its elation   just between you and I

many thoughts emerge   many thoughts subside   questions fade or linger
nor book nor scroll   exhaust the relation   just between you and I

here Raphael mimics   a wizened man   scrawling lines in China
he's squandered his life   and reputation   just between you and I


========

Beijing (July 5-7), Soho New Town
(begun while sitting inside Ai Weiwei's garden sculpture -- by the long pool)

The Guanyin Temple: more specifically, the Red Snail Temple (where, among other statuary, one finds a nice image of the "Guanyin with a thousand hands")

ghazal: "arabesques"

This universe seems   like your smile   overdetermined
each incident gleams   like your guile   overdetermined

who're determined   to reach your port   (soft eyes of Nirvana)
observe   how proves every hard mile   overdetermined

it barely matters what we do now   if we but love you
is homecoming's shore   from exile   overdetermined?

true poetry flows   as seamlessly   as a fleet river
where similes harbor a style   overdetermined

is the firing squad reluctant?   bullet-like kisses
transform me   I ring when you dial   "overdetermined"

the police of your eyes arrest me   crossing time's border
was my contraband   (your profile)   overdetermined?

"I smart still   recalling how hard you worked   to mislead me"
thus spake my heart's blind imbecile   overdetermined

they love you (in spite of good sense)   who crave absurd theatre
strange habits we culture   see file   "overdetermined"

for years Raphael   besotted with   mystical argot
admired arabesques   blooms his tile   overdetermined?


=====================

Here in Beijing (since May 13), I was happy to discover (in past day or so) that I can access Blogspot now! (unlike my general experience of it being blocked). Having trouble at the moment accessing Facebook (hopefully a passing phase), but nice to know the blog is, for the present, pulled into the realm of the censor-permitted infobahn ("Net Nanny" being, in some circles, the preferred term for this, i.e. vis-a-vis China's distinctive internet filtering customs).

During my recent months in India -- from return thereto (late October 2007) till coming back to Beijing (mid-May 2008) -- I was generally awash in ghazal-writing. Since landing in China, the habit has subsided to much rarer occasinalness.

Anyway, here's one latest ghazal -- partly spurred by finally getting into the somewhat popular (in highbrowish circles), but till now (when I've finally looked up the word) inevitably bewildering-to-me term noted, above, as the ghazal's radif (repeating item): "overdetermined."

"Overdetermined" has the problem (or let's just say, the characteristic) of meaning too many different things to too many different writers / thinkers / philosophers. But for purposes of ghazal poetry, this quality can perchance become more an asset than a hazard; or so my poem (perchance) posits / gambles / imagines. The word itself (amusingly) proves, in this connection, rather self-descriptive. At any rate, this concept of the "overdetermined" -- worried over (sequentially) by the likes of Freudians, Marxists, and other interesting philosophers of literature, language, culture, and dream -- seems to merit some place in the lexicon of the English ghazal; a place that could seem fairly destined (or even -- and ergo -- as it were, overdetermined).

/ / / / /

Too bad I'm not (at the moment) in a land with at-the-ready libraries & bookstores from which one might easily follow up some of the curious leads noted in the (above-linked) Wikipedia entry about this very interesting word; for instance, I've not (alas) as yet read I.A. Richards' famous book on literary ambiguity. I'm curious to grasp in what way he adapted the notion of the "overdetermined" within the framework of his ideas. Perhaps another day / moon / year I'll be situated to catch up on such.

All of this amounts to tangential annotation vis-a-vis the poem, of course.

yours always,
d.i.

trivial footnote: actually posted July 5 (not 4)