A Recollection

Now we’re down aisle seventeen and I see you with my eyes
Like the emerald centrepiece seen in the ring from a child’s jewellery vending machine,
I see your plastic eyes that cost about 20p.
Walking blind up and down the aisles in Sainsbury’s
You and your eyes ask why I don’t follow you
“I was just looking for pistachios down number 22”
Then I remember the time my brown eyes
And your green eyes counted the 9 moles on my neck
As I blew the hair on your shoulders
Beads of sweat pooling in the creases of my knees
And the small of your back
The grooves in the pads of my hands catching your hair follicles
Touching your shoulder blades and seeing your eyes
Falling down to your waist while the pale blue sheet
Pulled tight across your mattress stroked my spine,
Now we’re down aisle thirty-nine
And remember the first time I tasted your spit
And mine together as we sat in your car,
That distant look in your eyes

I am aware that I am capable of writing poetry that is unrestricted, but am inclined to struggle when working with form. Creating a Ghazal where each line shares the same meter, whilst retaining recurring rhyming couplets was extremely difficult for me. I attempted to edit my work so that it complied with the rules but this ended up altering the content, leaving me with a poem that I was unsatisfied by.


It has been said that ‘A Ghazal may be understood as a poetic expression of both the pain of loss or separation and the beauty of love in spite of that pain’ which I have achieved by combining the loss of a relationship with climactically sensual language, triggered by a memory. For example, the line ‘I see your plastic eyes’ is metaphorical of a person devoid of empathy, however ‘I remember my brown eyes and your green eyes, counting the 9 moles on my neck’ conjures imagery of a specific and intimate moment within the relationship and brings the colour back into the eyes. I also remained close to the rule of a recurrent refrain, my choice being eyes which was an aspect that pushed what I was writing towards that. Similarly, I made use of the supermarket as my chosen location which gave a strong sense of narrative. When read aloud, my classmates found the supermarket to almost navigate the poem, taking the voice on a journey through the aisles, while giving them a strong a focus on place.
I definitely need to challenge myself more by working with form that I find complex, instead of avoiding them with the apprehension that various limitations will boundary my creativity. It is also far more difficult to write to a brief but definitely more rewarding in terms of what you accomplish. Finally, using form in this instance has posed as an inspiration or a catalyst, rather than leading to a poem that strictly follows formulaic regulations.