Bourge-wise Cat

otated in a way that reflects the authors' distinct perception of
things.
Elsewhere, from “Tracery”:
“The clockwork/train runs/on a circular track, between/nowhere
and nowhere else,” and "Doors with no apparent
connection/between rooms dominate/the homes in the city
perched/on a cliff/overlooking the sea” invite us into a desolate
cosmos where nature can be either a friend or foe - or even an
indifferent force: "rain, no rain, it's all the same"
Now onto the ghazals. Ghazals originated in Arabic poetry, and
can be thought of as akin to sonnets in the sense that the form
dictates a certain structure, and even meter. In the case of the
ghazal, usually the structure consists of couplets, around five or
seven, but sometimes as many as fifteen. A repeated word or
phrase appears and the end of both lines of the first couplet and at
the end of the second line in each subsequent couplet. Rhymes or
near-rhymes are also present.
Michelle and Sheila took a more elastic approach to ghazals,
however - they took a stringent, some would even say stifling,
structure and broke it apart to mold a new form, one that breathes a
bit more but maintains the integrity of the original form.
We will start with Ghazal Four, which was the first one I
earmarked in the book when I initially read it. The poem itself is a
dense thicket of abstract imagery alternating with tangible
impressions, layered with fevered philosophizing akin to a
Nietschze or Hiedegger. In this poem, I get a sense of weariness
and wariness about one's own identity, and accumulating
sensations of self-doubt ("To all my half selves below the deck/Are
mirrors of inadmissible distance."). This is further reflected in the
"pulsating mirror" that "sputtered questions to oneself." That said,