I took all of the words from a poem by Agha Ali, rearranging them from a Ghazal into a true Shakespearean sonnet ( though I had a lot of words left over that I just discarded ). The task is a lot harder than it looks. If anyone's interested, try it.
Here's the text for my poem:
It's Real
Jonathan Chin
September 3, 2002
Satan has burned the city down Ali
I hope where the cold ash is you are not
I hold one syllable left in your plot
Farewell's the evidence - Read it slowly:
What could love do dissolving in hell-fire?
I'll be consoled by a small funeral
in God's Street that angels controlled
They led me to the earth you were under
A refugee, O Yaar, comes afterwards
he heard of a growing Ghazal untold--
my heart is my former god so I sold
him a lie Shahid... I stole your words--
Each existence will unfold in real time.
Belovèd I'll be parolled in real time.
Here's a link to a graphic, if you want to see what I saw:
http://www.poets.cjb.net/graphics/itsreal.jpg
And here's the original poem:
Ghazal
Agha Shahid Ali
for Daniel Hall
I'll do what I must if I'm bold in real time.
A refugee, I'll be parolled in real time.
Cool evidence clawed off like shirts of hell-fire?
A former existence untold in real time...
The one you would choose: were you led then by him?
What longing, O Yaar, is controlled in real time?
Each syllable sucked under waves of our earth--
The funeral love comes to hold in real time!
They left him alive so that he could be lonely--
The god of small things is not consoled in real time.
Please afterwards empty my pockets of keys--
It's hell in the city of gold in real time.
God's angels again are-for Satan-forlorn.
Salvation was bought but sin sold in real time.
The throat of the rearview and sliding down it
the Street of Farewell's now unrolled in real time.
I heard the incessant dissolving of silk-
I felt my heart growing so old in real time.
Her heart must be ash where her body lies burned.
What hope lets your hands rake the cold in real time?
Dear Friend, the Belovèd has stolen your words--
Read slowly: the plot will unfold in real time. |
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