Ghazal Game #9: Illustrate the Comic Strip
Ghazal Game #10: Truth or Dare
Ghazal Game #11: Spin the Bottle
Ghazal Game #12: Know Your Shakespeare
Ghazal Game #1
Think of the greatest love you’ve ever had ( ).
Write his/her name in the space provided _____________.
As long as you reiterate this name,
The semblance of this ghazal is complete: _____________!
Don’t doubt, no matter what terror may come,
That God will fill your emptiness with Dear _____________.
For me, Janette. For Dante, Beatrice.
For Rumi, Sham-y-Tabriz. And for you? _____________.
Space makes the greatest rhyme. Sufis know this,
In spite of their lust for someone just like _____________.
Now burn your useless books! You’ll learn much more
Inside schoolhouses of desire taught by _____________.
Is it so silly, making readers work?
Doesn’t most poetry ask you to find _____________?
“Dearly beloved, we are gathered here
To join (state your full name) and (state his/hers) __________ . . .”
Computer code, universal language,
Breaks down when translating the essence of _____________.
Would you obsess over your petty shame?
Instead, substitute it with a kiss from _____________.
All maps lead you to bliss. Your GPS
Just estimates the time and distance to _____________.
Before the loggers come for the last tree,
Write this last line with a sharp knife: I
At this point, do you think you really chose _____________?
Before you were born, you were chosen by _____________!
Sonnet Ghazal
for Janette
Hafez, the baker, could see what I mean;
If she were a spice, she’d be cinnamon.
It’s both terrifying and exciting,
The idea that she’d see other men.
Oh, God, I’d sell my soul to watch her walk;
Hear my prayer, and grant me this sin. Amen.
I heard the great poets of Shiraz sing
Through olive vein-lines of her Persian skin.
I know; this ghazal objectifies her,
Ignoring feminist criticism.
Reversing the Cinderella story,
She turns all princes into cindermen.
“Your next patient, Doctor. It’s Roger S.”
“The one lovesick for his wife? Send him in.”
Ghazal Game #2: Pin the Tail on the Middle Eastern Donkey
By spinning yourself you’ll spin the donkey.
Sufis teach us how to pin the donkey.
At school in Cairo, we watched where we stepped.
(The groundskeeper didn’t pen the donkey.)
“Yalla, y’hmar!” yelled at a slow driver
In an attempt to quicken the donkey.
It’s all connected. One wrestles within
To change the real world and pin the donkey.
The butterflies have all been cataloged.
Hapless scientists just pin the donkey.
Can’t understand this game? Stop thinking. Close
Your sense of self and open the donkey.
“Hey, poet, we’re literal! We came here
With blindfolds and tacks to pin the donkey.”
Let’s say you hit the target. What’s the point?
It’s not like you really win the donkey.
A live sex act too freaky to recount
Traumatized me, the woman, the donkey . . .
If Lennon was the Walrus, I’m at best
The camel, maybe even the donkey.
Inverted Ghazal
for David Lehman
A mirror fuses false appearances;