Assignment 4: Writing a ghazal 

	A ghazal is a tightly constrained poetic form which is not unified
thematically. In it all lines are of equal length and have the same
behr or meter. The first two lines must rhyme and every even line
thereafter:  A A B A C A D A E A etc. The couplets in a ghazal number
five, seven, nine, or more (some odd number greater than three).  The
author's taxallus 'nom de plume' appears in the last couplet.

	Each couplet is thematically separate from its neighbors. This is 
one of the characteristics of the Urdu ghazal that takes some getting used 
to: the absence of any development or unifying theme that carries through 
from the beginning to the end of a poem. A ghazal is held together only by 
its formal structure. Each individual couplet may be thought of as an 
additional comment on one or another of a traditional set of themes known 
to all those who create or hear or recite Urdu poetry. But there is no 
necessary relation of a given couplet in a ghazal to the ones following or 
preceding it.

	For this assignment write a ghazal in English that adheres to the
formal structure and thematic non-structure of its Persian and Urdu
models. For this you must choose a for yourself and in your ghazal you
must use a qaafiyaa 'rhyme' and a radiif (a repeated word or
phrase that directly follows the qaafiyaa). The radiif must remain the
same from couplet to couplet although different senses of a given radiif
may be exploited in different couplets. A ghazal has at least five
couplets and so you will need at least six rhymes. The themes of a ghazal
tend to be erotic, religious, philosophical, even political. Description
of nature or vivid imagery is rare unless it simultaneously serves to
represent some more abstract concept. Fulfillment of desire or happy
joyfulness are usually not expressed in a ghazal. Wry humor, especially
irony, is quite appropriate.

     An example:

	His crown's cast down, his scepter thrown away,		
	An angel's come to haul his throne away.
			
	Our cave resounds with happy drunken song 
	No angels here to roll the stone away!			

	She must have kept a whirlwind in her robe,
	That he, like so much dust, was blown away.			

	You've found a way to clone a sigh? Now find
	A way to keep a sigh-cyclone away.				

	May birds forgive the tree that will not leaf			
	Until each past year's grief has flown away.			

	"The line is busy every time I call."				
	"It's time to throw your telephone away."			

      	'Alone', why not keep knocking at his door?			
	Are you so certain you'll be shown away?

							-- 'Alone'