Ghazal Poetry: Sing the Childhood Loss

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Ghazal poetry sings the ache. For a lover, yes. But also, at times, for simple loss.

Poetry Prompt

Think of a childhood space that has since been lost, to time or ruin, to geography or housing-development. Sing the ache of what cannot be reclaimed, except, perhaps, in your ghazal poem. (Need a reminder for how to write a ghazal? Go here.)

Thanks to our participants in last week’s poetry prompt. Here’s a ghazal we enjoyed from Grace Marcella Brodhurst-Davis…

On Recapturing Childhood Creativity

The child who’s lost her hold as age deludes her skeptic girl
Fate knows, and her dreams for you behold optimistic, girl

Where, pray tell, have you misplaced your wildly budding mind’s eye?
Where dreams no longer blossom and betray eccentric, girl

Never ordinary at play any given young day
Reaps older, though rounded spirit -the altruistic girl

The blaze of Life’s to-do lists lets Time’s miser furl its fists
Bares a soul who’s lost her magic –a veiled artistic girl

And I, Marcella, need just stop and look beyond the glare
It’s always been in your child’s eyes to be prolific, girl!

—Grace Marcella Brodhurst-Davis

Photo by thejbird, Creative Commons, via Flickr.

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Comments

  1. I have been singing the ache and singing the childhood loss lately. “Singing” because it’s usually triggered by a hit oldies song that I hear while grocery shopping or running errands (because the store plays it on their muzak). The songs triggering the most powerful nostalgia/ache are from the late 1970s/early 1980s. Yikes. I think I need to do this prompt.

    Reply

    • Literally singing the ache… I can see you doing that. And maybe, at some point, dancing it too.

      Biggest nostalgia song for you?

      Reply

      • Well, one morning I woke up with “Celebrate Me Home” (1977) playing in my head, and it did me in for several days. The one I heard in the store last week was “What a Fool Believes” (1979). It has the words “He came from somewhere back in her long ago,” which fascinated me, and which I used in my ghazal for this prompt. Here it is:

        From her unbroken days the music, a song,
        played in Motown sound—a bruising song.

        In the rhythm and blues of blue-eyed soul
        she mishears the words. She confuses the song.

        The catch of a phrase progressing the chord,
        repeating to find the clues the song.

        Loose syncopations tighten the driving
        beat, a nostalgic noose of a song.

        From somewhere back in her long-ago
        she finds the lyric. She won’t lose the song.

        Reply

        • I’ve been reading these poems this month, and I’ve been enjoying them, but I didn’t wander over here until you said you’d posted a bonus class assignment here, Monica. So glad you did that, because know I get what’s going on.

          I’m still very much in a learning phase 🙂

          And, I’m so glad you were inspired by What a Fool Believes. One of the best songs ever.

          Reply

        • Monica – It’s like you’ve been writing ghazals forever. This is wonderful. I tend to like form poetry more than free-style poetry (I may be getting the words mixed up there), primarily because I like the rules and the repetition and the way they drive the sound and tone of the poem. I really like the ghazal, though I had never heard of it before this series. I definitely want to go back and try my hand. I think it would be a wonderful exercise to take a few hours one Saturday and work through all of the TS Poetry prompts.

          Reply

  2. Marcella,, I really really like your ghazal!! Still trying to follow your lead and live inside a poem!

    Monica…. I hear that. Me, too.

    Reply

  3. My first born son will be 21 on Thursday. Of course, I am filled with longing. Mother’s have rites of passage too, yes? And so, A Mother’s Om

    A Mother’s Om

    I look at you and then at my self… hands on my belly, once your home
    For precious 9 months I could say (and be certain) “When I’m home, You’re home”

    Your heart beat as quickly as fluttering wings– warning of flight I suppose
    9 months suspended beneath my own skin- nestled beneath Mama’s dome

    I always wanted grand wings for you. Strong wings to carry you far
    But my arms are aching with emptiness now…. Now that you have flown

    Your grand wings carry you up toward the sun. I holler “Come BACK DOWN!”
    But you can’t hear me, you fly higher still… too high, then drop like a stone

    I, Donna, ache with helplessness, watching you fly… watching you fall.
    With a tear in my eye I pray breezes will lift you. I sing a mother’s Om.

    Reply

  5. Mash up a few phrases from children’s songs, add some filler, and throw in true love lost:

    Charming Billy: A Mash-up Ghazal

    Oh, where have you been, Billy boy, Billy boy?
    Write a letter to me, love, don’t be coy, Billy boy.

    The cat’s in the cupboard and he can’t see us.
    And Daddy’s gone a hunting. Jump for joy, Billy boy.

    Mid pleasures and palaces, bells are sweetly ringing.
    We are floating in sunshine. Yes, attaboy, Billy boy!

    Sixty minutes make an hour. My babe to sleep he goes.
    O fiddle-de-dee, O baby dearest, I can’t enjoy Billy boy.

    The skies with storms are laden. Nature calls but calls in vain.
    Softly sighs the voice of evening, you me annoy, Billy boy.

    Bobby Shafto’s gone to sea now; his training’s just begun.
    And when the drumbeats call to war, you’ll too deploy, Billy boy.

    Oh, diddle, diddle dumpling, my Highland laddie’s gone.
    And if a frog he would a wooing, I would destroy Billy boy.

    All is still in sweetest rest, Maureen. Thou needst no longer weep.
    A ship, his ship’s a sailing. So bid ahoy, Billy boy.

    Reply

  6. If Wishes Were Ghazals

    Scattered far, the gray horses
    of my yearning, the way horses

    galloping are free from the earth
    for a moment. We can’t say horses

    fly though. Can’t say sprightly seeds
    will bloom bright, when May horses

    on their plodding wings run wild
    across my wishes where they lay, horses

    that kick and splay the Rick of wood,
    with Spring abandon as do horses play.

    Reply

  7. My Father’s Hat
    —for Richard Clayton Maxson, 1922-2006

    For you now, a paper hat—in a way,
    from me the child, though I’ve been away,

    two sides it has with points and folded flat,
    to let you know with age I’ve seen a way

    not to play the sad boy, who saves himself
    by caring less for those he’s leaned away

    from. My voice is different now, so is yours;
    years have seen to that. This seems a way

    to say, I understand, you were so young,
    and change was miles and many dreams away.

    Reply

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