Norm,
Here is my attempt:
"Wild Orchids"
Wild are orchids are blooming
Growing in the wind

Wild orchids are sunning
Lying in the wind

Wild orchids are changing color
Trying to avoid the wind.

Wild orchilds are wilting
Dying in the wind.

~Davidf
P.S. Any help with this or commentary would be much appreciated as this is my first attempt at a ghazal.  I know you say they don't usually rhyme, but if the inspiration hits me right...

Daniel,

I look forward to that day.

~Tim

Okay, if anyone is reading this that has more info than I...I've read the current releases from the Ghazalpage link, and I've noticed that instead of a rhyme carried through on line two of each couplet, the ending of line one is carried through (like the Drury example on this page). It is this exact repetition (I forget the term) that I've seen in the few ghazals I've happened across in the past. Anyone have a clarifying opinion?

Thanks,
~Tim

Post your own in this thread ....

Ghazal (pronounced Ghu-zzle) poetry is an Iranian format, which consists of less than a dozen couplets, unified by rhyme and meter. 
In its form, the ghazal is a short poem rarely of more than a dozen couplets It always opens with a rhyming couplet called matla. The rhyme of the opening couplet is repeated at the end of second line in each succeeding verse, so that the rhyming pattern may be represented as AA, BA, CA, DA, and so on. 
In addition, to the restriction of rhyme, the ghazal also observes a conventional radif. Radif demands that a portion of the first line, comprising not more than two or three words, immediately preceding the rhyme-word at the end, should rhyme with its counterpart in the second line of the opening couplet, and afterwards alternately throughout the poem.

Many modern ghazal writers do not adhere to any rhyme conventions.

There are plenty of sites about the Ghazal --- this may interest you:


Two examples, one my me and one by John Drury:


Ghazal - Love Has Received Us  

The birds from their nests once perceived us
As leaving our own nests mischievous

The scene that was painted off canvas
Well, can bread crumbs be left to deceive us

We've been bound by colors not thought of
We ought to use wings that conceived us.

The palette that held all the answers
The sands and the piper believed us

The doves in a fly-by bear witness
And with brush strokes love has received us.

© Norman S. Pollack 



Ghazal of the Lagoon

Morning, on the promenade, there's a break in the light
rain here in the serene republic.  I take in the light.

Every walker gets lucky at this gaming table,
where the gondoliers, like croupiers, rake in the light.

Through the glare of a restaurants window, I see
fish glinting, like spear points that shake in the light.

I could sit on the edge and get wet forever,
all to consider a speed boat's wake in the light.

Furnaces burn.  We sweat until we shine, fired up
by the wavy vases glassblowers make in the light.

Row me out, friars, in your _sandolo_ on the waves
that glitter like ducats, for God's sake, in the light.

             -- John Drury