Odysseus Under the Moon: Ghazal

This is my attempt at a Ghazal for dVerse. 

 

Over star-glimmered waves, we journeyed and sailed under the moon.

There we bemoaned our fate, still sailing—railed under the moon.

 

We see the fork-tongued serpent, slither-scaled under the moon,

she, no siren, silver-voiced with hair unveiled under the moon.

 

From the towering giant, one-eyed, we quailed under the moon,

but scurried we, when blinded he was thus curtailed under the moon.

 

On blood-wine seas, the winds caught and prevailed under the moon

And what of the gods, we flattered, yet failed, under the moon?

 

What lands should we conquer? If heroes, we’re hailed, under the moon.

And what tales of those places to you we’d regale under the moon.

 

Do we return to love, or to marriages failed, under the moon?

My own wife, unconsidered, what of her travails under the moon?

 

Too far, too soon, the poet sleeps unassailed under the moon

to the gentle rhythm of the waves, inhales, exhales, under the moon

 

Carl Gustav Carus [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

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