The ideal (textbook) form, of a ghazal or anything else, is just the background music to what you choose to do with it. You can harmonize or break harmony, depending. What will people think? That's up to them. If it's a good poem most will like it.
Mary will probably tell you that you learn the most from a form by submitting to it entirely. There is sense in that. It makes sense to learn to play an instrument conventionally before you start picking where you should bow or playing with your teeth. But, as Wilbur says, things have to be done in one way or another.
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