Two Ghazals

Here are two more ghazals for your reading pleasure; & I’ve added an audio clip of these read by yours truly. Actually, I recorded all 14 of the ghazals written to date, & if folks want, I can continue to post recordings of the poems already on the blog. Since the poems average close to a minute & a half reading time, I think that audio clips of two or at most three poems is the way to go.

A word on the audio: because Blogger doesn’t have a way of directly uploading MP3’s (I know there are some ways around this, but they all strike me as a bit complicated), I’ve come up with the expedient of creating slideshows to present our music, & I enjoy putting those together quite a lot. However, in the same way that I never include a picture when posting my poetry, I decided that I didn’t want to have a slideshow accompanying the poems, & so after a title frame, there is no video—all you need is one image to make a “movie” in Windows Movie Maker.

Hope you enjoy this.


Ghazal 5/9


two green morning stars phosphoresce above Indian Mountain
5:30 a m & finches & sparrows’ staccato outcry in willows’

arms & gray sky melting to whiteness a two story white
house & two green morning stars phosphoresce in a once up-

on a time whitewashed morning July 1978 & gray white air beyond the
screen window beyond a blue green orange batik—it could have been a

river—there aren’t any poems about this there’s 1 photo snapped
sometime later—red door & six steps—two green morning stars phos-

phorescing in a once upon a time distance amongst deep green
leaves & pungent white morning I didn’t have words for this

phosphorescence & you had few enough we were green
morning stars phosphorescing this morning & distant beyond a

screen window & sparrows call greenly to mates re-
peated patterns thru the weeping willow’s yellow empty arms


“it is night and it is serious”


a full moon’s amber light in indigo void a homestead’s
sodium light floating ghostly against the lower

ridgeline—an amber light in a floor lamp a hard-
cover book laid open across a birdseye maple table the words

were buried—I remember we used to sit together & read—an
amber light upstairs in a restaurant a candlelight’s sharp

blonde gesture inside the larger light & ghost-green
floodlights along Interstate 95 north past Perth Amboy the

green Vermont light thru lace curtains all evening we
used to sit together & read—a petrified silence the printed

words’ black gestures in amber light the full moon in
indigo void a Virginia indigo evening in a hilarious restaurant the

hennaed manic laughter “like dice shook”—the tailights’ red
shift fading along Interstate 81 south thru purple shadows

& printed words in a full moon’s amber light in a
void—the Vermont living room’s pine paneling a hennaed

page a ride thru ghost green light & serious words
I remember we used to sit together & read


(quote from Kenneth Fearing’s Green)

John Hayes
© 2009