In the Nocturama
 

.
.
.
Rev.1

The faces come when day goes off outside our glass.
We squirm from sleep to meet them: pressed wet-eyed to glass.

At first we paid them no attention, washing, hunting:
kept to the black work we plied in the glass.

But we'd rise from ourselves to see them: testing the walls
which edge their cage of nothing that side of glass.

They're here to teach us pity in the dark: & we pity
their fallen world past our divide of glass.

What hunts them, in that air? & if they were admitted
we'd teach them love: the coil & hide of glass.

We watch their watching: pinched eyes, predisposed to fix,
like the white days we've defied through sleep & glass.

Why do their eyes still follow us if not to glimpse
the life that's been denied them by our glass?

Yet there are those of us who claim we need them, that this
kingdom of eyes has sanctified our glass,

that all of us & our housed lives are nothing
but the lives their stares confide to glass.

***
The faces come when day goes off outside our glass.
We squirm from sleep to meet them: pressed wet-eyed to glass.

We think they must be some exhibit: testing the walls
which edge their cage of nothing that side of glass.

They're here to teach us pity in the dark: & we pity
their fallen world passed our devide of glass.

Why do their eyes still follow us if not to glimpse
the life that's been denied them by our glass?

What hunts them, in that air? & if they were admitted
we'd teach them love: the coil & hide of glasss.

We watch their watching: pinched eyes, predisposed to fix,
like the white days we've defied through sleep & glass.

Yet there are those of us who claim we need them, that this
kingdom of eyes has sanctified our glass,

& our black work — our hunting, washing, gazing lives —
are but* the lives their stares confide in glass.


***just the lives?
.
.
.

Cameron,

So I have been thinking about closure since your last poem in the Deep End. Now relative to my own preferences, the final line has to unwind quickly enough to create the resonance with what has gone before. I think the grammar of "are but* the lives their stares confide in glass." just stumbles too much over itself to create what I would consider a satisfying close. Similary, I thought that "as what night builds annihilates by day" which reminded me of Cally's "as the sun does to the dew" almost trips over itself also.

Ghazals to me are just utter cold bare tests of phrasing.

So I think the poem does an interesting shift with

"Why do their eyes still follow us if not to glimpse
the life that's been denied them by our glass?"

but I am not sure you need the follow up with the next couplet, or whether that couplet could possibly match what you've already written. The perceptual trick is "perspective reversal" in that the glass does not keep you in, but keeps them out.

Some ideas off the top of my head:

[1] Perhaps this shift can come later, and and closer to the close, so you can build towards it, and then close the poem from it. For example, "we watch their watching" would set up the "the life denied them by our glass".
[2] I think you give the game away too early with "We think they must be some exhibit:". Keep the rabbit in the hat as long as possible, but just before it dies.
[3] I reckon "black work" is too open a phrase for the close, and suits the interior of the poem better.

Yeah!

I’m always excited to see a new ghazal, but this one is going to take meditating on. Meanwhile, I suppose you mean “past our divide.” And “glasss” in the fifth sher could lose an “s.”

Here’s an irrelevant comment as a placeholder for a serious critique: “Testing the walls” made me think of “Fawlty Towers”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwXpsPiJ_WE

I guess it is a typo, but I rather enjoyed the Slytherin speak of glasss.:)

With Cameron, you never know.

(revision posted)
 

Hello Yves.
Ghazals are a furious joy. Your suggestions are very helpful: I agree with each of them. That's interesting about my "Meeting a Poet". I have made a revision with your comments in mind. There is another couplet now which worries me: because I hate the extraneous, but the ghazal is a perpetual motion machine only checked by the resourcefulness of the operator. We will see... Thanks, big man! this is very helpful, and I would be interesting by your response to my revision, if you trekked out to the endz.

Carl and Joe. Thank you for catching me. I am an illiterate Samuel Greenberg! No, just my own foolishness, no naive onomatopoeia.
Thank you.

Cameron--

On Form:
Is this intended to be a ghazal? Or just ghazal adjacent? The ghazals that I've been reading were a bit more strict about the rhyme (qafiya) going straight into the radif. But you've broken the two apart throughout with "to" "of" "them by our" and other breaks. If that's right, then I appreciate your teaching me that this degree of variation is still correct for the form.

Also, you start with hexameter in both lines of the first couplet, but then all of the couplets after that have pentameter in the second line by my count. I like the rhythm of the hexameter followed by pentameter, but then I wonder why you don't do that in the first couplet as well since it sets the meter for the rest of the poem? Also, I got 7 beats in the first line of the third couplet.

On Sense:
I enjoyed this quite a bit. It felt like a riddle. "We" are fish! I wonder if the title gives too little away? "Nocturama" means nothing to me, and even after repeated readings still adds nothing for me. It took me two reads to catch that we are fish in an aquarium. Once I got that and re-read it with that in mind the whole thing became delightful, though I still have lots of questions/comments on your intentions here.

S1L1: wouldn't the faces appear when day goes ON outside the glass?

S2: I like the cage of nothing, but the first line feels too prosaic a set up.

S3: I'm not sure why the fish would have any story to tell of fallenness (in the religious sense), though it seems to me that fish would wonder why we never float up. They would think us bottom-feeders. But I'm not sure they would think us "fallen".

S4: I like this one

S5: I'm not buying that fish could teach us love, but I'd buy it better if they would teach us to love to "dart & coil & hide inside the glass".

S6: "White days we've defied" -- I'm afraid I don't get that one.

S7: again we return to religious language with "sanctified", but I struggle to imagine the fish having a religious impulse

S8: not sure what is meant by "black work" ...

So happy to see the ghazal party continuing and hope any of the above was helpful. Overall, quite delightful!

Cameron,

It is super interesting to compare the versions. Though the second version keeps about the same amount of variation, it is actually easier to follow. Carefulness of sequencing appears to be the hidden art of the ghazal.

For those confused by the title, this may be useful:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nocturnal_house