ghazal

all despots create an unfounded rage

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all despots create an unfounded rage,
the public eats from this free-handed rage.

blood flows through my land of undoubted hate,
all crops deluged by this unbounded rage.

the veiled villain is but a hounded lie,
we are revealed by our well-sounded rage.

these faultlines bring forth the confounded truth,
we all run on a radar-clouded rage.

who do we blame for these crowdfunded wrongs?
what ‘worth‘ do you know of (dis)counted rage?

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© Anmol Arora

A short ghazal written with a heavy heart, encapsulating certain components like matlaa, radif, qaafiyaa, and maqtaa. Linking it up with dVerse Poetry Form challenge, hosted by Gay Reiser Cannon.
More ghazals: your love took all with it but this sweet pain and i wait at a lost November’s altar

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your love took all with it but this sweet pain

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your love took all with it but this sweet pain,
you rendered your sleek spell in this neat pain.

the skies are split open by the heat’s rage,
i smouldered to the whims of this elite pain.

you dropped all pretense, spilled my discreet truths,
i am left bloodied by our defeat’s pain.

you are not my soul, not a complete stop,
i won’t be richer by your deceit’s pain.

all this loss made us change our concrete ways,
still i lost you to this obsolete pain.

do not go to find your past life’s street-mark —
Priceless, you’ll no more love your heartbeat’s pain.

.
© Anmol Arora

A half-hearted ghazal — linking it up with The Tuesday Platform at WRT

i wait at a lost November’s altar…

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i wait at a lost November’s altar
i’ve stood long by your remembered altar.

the mist has enveloped your revered limbs
o, my burnt god, at your embers’ altar.

i’ve sought grace from you, my offender, — kiss
and bless my blood on the weather’s altar.

the snow-peaked red of my surrender made —
o, my hemlock-love, at gender’s altar.

i am not a man, nor nature’s rendered spring,
unworthy of your sight’s treasured altar.

the sweet incense hangs in a slender hope,
o, my sinned friend, at forever’s altar.

accept my sacrifice, my splendor’s death,
i, Priceless, will wait at winter’s altar.


© Anmol Arora 2018

For “All in November’s soaking mist” at With Real Toads — a try at an English Ghazal, with seven couplets and ten-syllable lines, and radeef, kafiya, matla, maktaa, et al. No constant metrical foot though. For the takhallus, I used the English meaning of my name. To be edited further.
Also linking it up with OLN #232 at dVerse
Image source (Sacrifice of the Rose by Keith Carrington)

For a treat, enjoy Begum Akhtar’s magical rendition of Faiz’s “Aaye Kuchh Abr Kuchh Sharaab Aaye”