Poetry: Moments of a Mosque
Jun. 10th, 2007 12:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jhameiaTitle: Moments of a Mosque
Genre: modernized ghazal
Theme: Several - religion, moments, multi-culturalism.
Comments: This is actually a poem I wrote for my poetry class. A ghazal is traditionally a love poem, but modern writers use the form and not the theme - the form being that it consists of several two-line stanzas, and certain words are repeated at the end of every stanza. They have to seem disconnected from each other, but when the poem as a whole is looked at, it should look unified. I don't know if I accomplished that though. Also, the poet is supposed to somehow incorporate their name into the last line.
Most Malaysians will know what I'm talking about here. When I handed this in, I also had to include an explanation for some stuff in here so my prof would get it.
The air quivers with the heat as the sun rises above
the minarets and the onion domes of the mosque.
Lilah, Soo Cheng, and Kumari are walking
together, hand-in-hand, on the grass by the mosque.
A frog hops and hides in the drain, away
from the sun and the cats howling by the mosque.
At 5 a.m. every morning, when Ishak rings out,
the dogs howl, resonating with the faith of the mosque.
Under the shade of a coconut tree, a rojak seller sits
on a red plastic stool and food aquarium by the mosque.
For Raya Haji, the camels are made comfortable
before their sacrifice on the grounds of the mosque.
Kimberly wants to know why men wear white dresses,
"so they shine like angels on their way to the mosque?"
Baharun fought with his mother, his mother, his mother;
he turns his back on her before he leaves for the mosque.
An old, dying cat in his hand, an imam sits,
contemplating the will of Allah on the steps of the mosque.
Seng Cheng waits for his girlfriend on a Boon Siew motorbike,
at the rendezvous point far from her family's mosque.
On Friday, tens of cars line up along the roadside;
in parking lot "J", mee goreng stall owners wait by the mosque.
Genre: modernized ghazal
Theme: Several - religion, moments, multi-culturalism.
Comments: This is actually a poem I wrote for my poetry class. A ghazal is traditionally a love poem, but modern writers use the form and not the theme - the form being that it consists of several two-line stanzas, and certain words are repeated at the end of every stanza. They have to seem disconnected from each other, but when the poem as a whole is looked at, it should look unified. I don't know if I accomplished that though. Also, the poet is supposed to somehow incorporate their name into the last line.
Most Malaysians will know what I'm talking about here. When I handed this in, I also had to include an explanation for some stuff in here so my prof would get it.
The air quivers with the heat as the sun rises above
the minarets and the onion domes of the mosque.
Lilah, Soo Cheng, and Kumari are walking
together, hand-in-hand, on the grass by the mosque.
A frog hops and hides in the drain, away
from the sun and the cats howling by the mosque.
At 5 a.m. every morning, when Ishak rings out,
the dogs howl, resonating with the faith of the mosque.
Under the shade of a coconut tree, a rojak seller sits
on a red plastic stool and food aquarium by the mosque.
For Raya Haji, the camels are made comfortable
before their sacrifice on the grounds of the mosque.
Kimberly wants to know why men wear white dresses,
"so they shine like angels on their way to the mosque?"
Baharun fought with his mother, his mother, his mother;
he turns his back on her before he leaves for the mosque.
An old, dying cat in his hand, an imam sits,
contemplating the will of Allah on the steps of the mosque.
Seng Cheng waits for his girlfriend on a Boon Siew motorbike,
at the rendezvous point far from her family's mosque.
On Friday, tens of cars line up along the roadside;
in parking lot "J", mee goreng stall owners wait by the mosque.