Micropoetry Month: Nov 2017: #22

I love the Ghazal – it is lyrical, challenging and utterly beautiful when it comes out right. The repeating end word and rhyming word of each couplet define the cadence of the ghazal and direct its mood. No one writes it better in English than Agha Shahid Ali, one of my favourite poets.

Try a ghazal or any other form of micropoetry and share via comments or Mister Linky.
My attempt today references the legendary romance of Prince Salim and Anarkali, a dancer in the court of his father, the great Emperor Akbar.

She-Rose

Briefly, behind harem veils, where the moon wind gently rose,
a prince sought his father’s concubine, a soft, heavenly rose.

The king burned in royal wrath, the denouement broke their hearts,
she was buried alive under the stones, where the Jamuna quickly rose.

You spoke of Salim and Anarkali, intolerable even to fate,
he died as the mighty Jahangir, she lives on, a stately rose.

I remember the sky that night, impossibility fell like rain,
wet skin grew of fatal hope, though new suns cruelly rose.

The climax of human opera, the drama of the unfulfilled,
tragedy stains god and tomb and the death-hued pearly rose.