Ghazal Sonnet

Or perhaps betray the latter by your magnanimity.
The priest sprinkled holy water on the migraine-inducing din.

The soul’s detritus is teeming with microscopic mirrors
which reflect auspicious dreams—the one about

being smothered by lizards, for example. Or the one about
an iridescent patina shrouding both lantern and hornet.

The cathedral spire looks quivery in the river,
snaky in the lake. How else could one evoke

reptilian grace than with sinuous prose?
There are no campaign buttons on a shroud of mystery

encompassing the insula of the House of the Rising Sun,
no camp inmates gassed by the Penguin.

Death is just a symptom of amphetamine
deprivation, a self-abnegatory sanctity.