Sanity Ghazal

Balancing on a tightrope, holding onto sanity.
Soundness of mind, judgment, vanity defines sanity.

Rainbows after a spring rain deploy feelings of reason,
Children laughing, running, jumping with joy, sanity.

Progress in the world, challenges of lunacy and madness, passion.
Extreme folly unfurled, destroying the legacy of sanity.

Tossing and turning, sleep will not come,
thoughts in my mind keep my sanity.

Our love can only be shared with the echoes of the canyon.
At last we are free from prying eyes and ears, our sanity.

Escape from the mundane sameness of life,
are you game, take a trip to sanity.

Sylvia thinks profanity shocks our sensibility.
Unnecessary words spoken, a rock thrown at sanity.

Copyright © 2010 Sylvia All Rights Reserved
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Ghazal, for more information see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghazal

Form. A traditional Ghazal consists of five to fifteen couplets, typically seven. A refrain (a repeated word or phrase) appears at the end of both lines of the first couplet and at the end of the second line in each succeeding couplet. In addition, one or more words before the refrain are rhymes or partial rhymes. The lines should be of approximately the same length and meter. The poet may use the final couplet as a signature couplet, using his or her name in first, second or third person, and giving a more direct declaration of thought or feeling to the reader.

Style. Each couplet should be a poem in itself, like a pearl in a necklace. There should not be continuous development of a subject from one couplet to the next through the poem. The refrain provides a link among the couplets, but they should be detachable, quotable, grammatical units. There should be an epigrammatic terseness, yet each couplet should be lyric and evocative.

Title. Usually the word Ghazal and the refrain are combined for the title.