GHAZAL OF A LIFE

Click, clock, as you nibble the time of a life.

Yawn, years, as you swallow the prime of a life.

What’s that noise—time’s wingèd chariot? Bruiting birds?

Abrasive racket, this chong and chime of a life.

The old house needs a new deck. Closet doors dismember.

Will Death, the final mortgage bill, be next, the dark subprime

of a life?

Rugosa shoots pink between the thorns.

Apricot bows with frail fruit—the brief sublime of a life.

Aphids swarm the spongy pepper, slugs suck the buds.

Too fecund yard, too fertile forms, muck-mired grime of a life.

How to spice this heaving stew? A fresh leaf, a fragrant umbel?

The usual suspects—parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme of a

life.

Paupered, plundered, pirated, pillaged—sacked, looted,

mobbed, daubed, Job’d.

Left just one song, a perennial “Brother can you spare me a

dime” of a life.

Even dreams crack with disaster—drowned cars, malevolent

crowds, bleeding eyes.

This teeming grind, 24/7 overtime of a life.

Running on karma—did a past self chop heads?

Who can account for even one ruin—that unsolved mystery,

the crime of a life.

What light glares up ahead? Police interrogation? Divine

beyond?

Terrestrial tinsel, that glow—glitter-ball, strobe or lime of a

life.

And that gambler with the razzled hair and weedy eye—

watch her place her bets on this scheming rhyme of a life.