[Matt Q]

This one is very old – a one-day draft from one of many poem-a-day challenges I've partaken in.

On writing a ghazal

Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever manage to write a ghazal.
Oh I have tried, but what I write is never quite a ghazal.

Perhaps it’s because a part of me thinks
there’s something not quite right about the ghazal

Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn't want to criticise –
far be it from me to slight the ghazal,

but it’s just that - how can I put this? – most poems
seem to have a just a little more bite than a ghazal,

And I think it's fair to say that very few forms
put up quite so little fight as a ghazal,

and this repetition thing – I mean, there’s a danger
of just going on all night with a ghazal.

But enough, I’m at risk of sounding like
I’m being impolite about the ghazal.

And let’s focus on the positives here, at least
it looks like this one actually might be a ghazal.

Fingers crossed, I may finally
have done everything right with a ghazal.

And I’m not the sort of person who’d
mess things up just out of spite.