Ghazal

I bust­ed out my sax­o­phone last night and played it for awhile. Since my gui­tar skill has plateaued for the time being, I thought toss­ing anoth­er instru­ment into the mix might increase my skill-to-hours-prac­ticed ratio. Since I have a tape deck now, I can lis­ten to my blues method tapes that I’ve had for so long. My jaw and tongue and lips are sore. Oh yeah, got­ta write a poem.

A bit on the ghaz­al. This one isn’t specif­i­cal­ly erot­ic, but it might be sen­su­al in the broad­est terms.

The farmer is car­ry­ing a spade, a loaf
of bread and a face like limp stalks of cel­ery.
An old dog fol­lows.

If the world rests on the back of a giant tur­tle,
what does the tur­tle rest on? And what hap­pens
when the tur­tle goes into its shell?

Shuf­fling cards, a husky sax­o­phone, exhaust smoke;
incon­gru­ous­ly, in my apart­ment. Two blocks away
a tat­tooed barista does her tax­es.

Per­pet­u­al motion in still­ness, three notes
on a blues scale and a pic­ture of a jel­ly­fish
in the ocean.

A blind woman on a bus knows her stop
by the play of sun and shade on her face. If she
sat in the oth­er aisle, she’d ride for eter­ni­ty.