Lazharbouazzi poems on Hello Poetry

Lazhar Bouazzi May 2018

The rain ticks on the curb
Like a chronometer
Held up to a short race

As a man entering the mall
Feels his pocket for his
Wallet,
A grimace cracks his face.

© LazharBouazzi

Lazhar Bouazzi Mar 2018

The Goddess of the Morning & the Mason. To my Mother, Jannette and my Father, Al Hussein - an Elegy.

To the Goddess of morn
who made bread from fire
and taught me how to read
to read the wreaths of coffee
into the songs of dawn.

And to the Mason who
showed me how to hammer,
form out of chaos
and cherish the scent of
the cement on grey-green walls.

© LazharBouazzi

Lazhar Bouazzi Jul 2018

The Window

The first thing I saw early this morning
When I pulled back the light green curtains
Was a hectic blue 'n orange butterfly
Wavering in the fair sun of my garden -
'tween the enclosed well and the laurel tree.

On a sidewalk, red and radiant,
Strutted two maidens together,
A turquoise skirt wore the one,
A chocolate T-shirt the other.

Jubilant they were together,
As the cadence of their laughter
Waved in the air like Tunisian silk.

No harvest did my screen display today,
No mountain range did loom far in the distance;
All that was shown were a laughing sidewalk,
And a quivering sun in a small garden.

(c) LazharBouazzi

Lazhar Bouazzi Apr 2016

The Window

The first thing I saw early this morning
When I pulled back the light green curtains
Was a hectic blue 'n orange butterfly
Waving in the fair sun of my garden -
Between the enclosed well and the laurel tree.

On the red radiant sidewalk,
Two damsels strutted together;
A turquoise skirt wore the one,
A chocolate T-shirt the other.

Jubilant they were together,
As the cadence of their laughter
Waved in the air like Tunisian silk.

No harvest did my screen display today,
No mountain range did loom far in the distance;
All that was shown were a laughing sidewalk,
And a quivering sun in a small garden.

(c) LazharBouazzi, April 21, 2016

Lazhar Bouazzi Jul 2018

The Swim

Azure was the sky, and leaden was the sea;
Not surprising would the discord be
For him who has read Wordsworth.

What ailed his thoughts were the debris
Of broken glass fishermen-in-boats
Might have thrown into the ocean
On a night of 'Celtia'* with no pairing,

Or the sight of a woman’s dress
Whose swollen darkness was
A sea urchin, whose quills
Were plucked by the greenness of rust;

Or a German parachute
Over Kasserine pass**, my thyme nest
And the center of Tunisia.

©LazharBouazzi, July 15, 2018

*'Celtia' is the oldest and most popular tunisian beer
**The Battle of Kasserine Pass was a battle of the Tunisia Campaign of World War II that took place in February 1943. Kasserine Pass is a 2-mile-wide (3.2 km) gap in the Grand Dorsal chain of the Atlas Mountains in west central Tunisia. The Axis forces, led by Generalfeldmarschall Erwin Rommel, were primarily from the Afrika Korps Assault Group, elements of the Italian Centauro Armoured Division and two Panzer divisions detached from the 5th Panzer Army, while the Allied forces consisted of the U.S. II Corps (Major General Lloyd Fredendall),[5] the British 6th Armoured Division (Major-General Charles Keightley) and other parts of the First Army (Lieutenant-General Kenneth Anderson).
The battle was the first major engagement between American and Axis forces in World War II in Africa. Inexperienced and poorly led American troops suffered many casualties and were quickly pushed back over 50 miles (80 km) from their positions west of Faïd Pass.[5] After the early defeat, elements of the U.S. II Corps, with British reinforcements, rallied and held the exits through mountain passes in western Tunisia, defeating the Axis offensive. As a result of the battle, the U.S. Army instituted sweeping changes of unit organization and replaced commanders[5] and some types of equipment.” (Wikipedia)
Ironically (or, correspondingly), West central Tunisia (notably Kasserine mountains) are now being used by what is left of Islamist terrorists, whose colors are green and black, as their headquarters in their battle against democracy. (my note)

Lazhar Bouazzi Dec 2016

Absence

Autumn leaves
would do
for remembrance,
Perhaps,
more than words,
or a plaintive air
Of a yellow guitar;
a rain,
a wine-dark wind
spraying last summer's
fragrance.
Ah! Your absence!

Your white,
present, absence
unshields
my metaphor!

© LazharBouazzi, December 7, 2016

Lazhar Bouazzi Jun 2016

Ode to the Tunisian Revolution

As the shape all sun
tore up the curtain
of blood and ululation,
everything in Tunisia,
as stricken by a wand,
came to a standstill,
and slipped away
from the senses -
Even rivers stopped.

Medjerda* froze
halfway
through the descent
to his destination,
as he realized
he’d been making a fatal error:
pouring forth all his passion
into the ocean.

So he stopped,
retracted his course,
re-collected himself,
and started flowing backward,
toward
the source
in the Atlas
that had bidden him
farewell.

In his spear head
there was a design:
start a new chaos
in the valley,
in which there would be
a sweet-water lake
and sailors drunk
with sunbeams, sweat
and pleasure.
Butterflies would flutter
around the scent of mint
and bluegreen rosemary.
Sweet Moon to Sweet Lake
would come, unannounced,
In the rays of the nightlight
of the fluttering night
to watch her self
shoot
the scene
of representation.

The river, now swimming
in his own water,
carried the sky on his shoulder,
while an ant and a grasshopper,
holding a basket together,
watched the new scene.

As the figure all sun appeared ,
reason melted;
imagination
her hazel eyes opened.

*Medjerda is the most important river in Tunisia. Length, 460 km; basin area, 22,000 sq km. It flows out of the Atlas mountains into the Gulf of Tunis.
© LazharBouazzi, June 16, 2016

*Medjerda is the most important river in Tunisia. Length, 460 km; basin area, 22,000 sq km. It flows out of the Atlas mountains into the Gulf of Tunis.

Lazhar Bouazzi May 2016

Sun & Moon

Poets, like
madmen and prophets,
are banned from
the Kingdom of Reason,
as they are
the progeny of the sun
(the sun who illumines as he blinds)
and the siblings
of the rays
who never tire
of beating
the world into
magnificent new shapes
that fascinate us
all – including
Unwavering Moon whose
lonesome secret is to be
madly in love
with the rainbow.

© LazharBouazzi, May 26, 216

Lazhar Bouazzi Jun 2018

The Rocks

A mock pack of sea dogs
Lay on the hot, white shore;
Their wrinkles said
They'd been too long
In the sea.
Next to them dozed a tyrian crab
Whose sleep in a foot-trace deep
Commenced to crumble
In the green rumble
Of a lecherous tide.

Then a dark, awkward sound
(Not too far from the drowsing crab)
Was heard.
He came forth from the mountain
To sun himself on the shore
And send the frightened rocks
Back to the deep.

(c) LazharBouazzi, 11 June, 2018

Lazhar Bouazzi Mar 2017

Cart in the Rain (re-post)

A rugged sidewalk cried hard by the way-side;
Its fissures could not hold their tears anymore.
A puny man pushed a red cart in the tide
Down a darkling, narrow street in Salammbô.*
He mumbled to the waves on his way to the market
As he gasped behind his laden chariot.

His merkabah bore many a lost things
Which he had found buried in the quicksand.
Among them a fountain pen and a helmet,
A pair of eyeglasses, and a trumpet.
I wondered, gazing at the old man’s washed face:
"Will this worn-out scene ever reach the marketplace?"
© LazharBouazzi

*Salammbô is a neighborhood in Carthage, TUN.

Lazhar Bouazzi Jul 2018

The Seagull

Across the leaden sky
A gull shooting a cry
Hurried to his task
Before the sky puts on his mask.

Nobody knew what his task was
Except that his time drew to a pause
And that he had to hurry because
From the open he had to retreat.

The bird knew this but he was wayward
Swimming in the airy wave, beak forward -
Skating, flying, but always eastward -
Heedless of the dark, like a poet.

(c) LazharBouazzi

Lazhar Bouazzi Nov 2016

The Walk (revised)

I took a walk in La Goulette yesterday
From the “Bridge-of-the-Casino” to the port.
The things I saw on my sun-bathing way
So simple they were, here is a report:
II
Sea snakes under a blue bridge did frolic
As hardware stores displayed paint in their windows.
The water snakes performed some dance symbolic
And the paint braved the dark rust from a distance.
III
And I, hastening to my liquid address,
Shot a side look at a man in a dress,
And hoped the blue water in the White Sea*
Would wash the wound bleeding in my memory.

© LazharBouazzi, 16/11/16 (revised Nov. 17)

*The Mediterranean is called in Arabic The White Middle Sea.

Lazhar Bouazzi Feb 2017

Ode to the Tunisian Revolution (re-vision/re-post)

As the shape-all-sun
tore up the curtain
of blood and ululation,
everything in Tunisia,
as stricken by a wand,
came to a standstill,
and slipped away
from the senses -
Even rivers stopped.

Medjerda* froze
halfway
through his descent
to his destination,
as he realized
he’d been making a fatal error:
pouring forth all his passion
into the ocean.

So he stopped,
retracted his course,
re-collected himself,
and started flowing backward,
toward
the source
in the Atlas
that had bidden him
farewell.

In his spear head
there was a design:
start a new chaos
in the valley,
in which there would be
a sweet-water lake
and sailors drunk
with sunbeams, sweat
and pleasure.
Butterflies would flutter
around the scent of mint
and bluegreen rosemary.
Through the flutter
of the midnight hour
Sweet Moon to Sweet Lake
would come, unannounced,
to watch her self shooting
the act of representation.

Now swimming
in his own water,
th river
carried the sky on his shoulder,
while an ant and a grasshopper,
holding a basket together,
watched the new scene.

As the figure-all-sun appeared ,
reason melted;
imagination
her hazel eyes opened.

© LazharBouazzi

*Medjerda is the most important river in Tunisia. Length, 460 km; basin area, 22,000 sq km. It flows out of the Atlas mountains into the Gulf of Tunis.

Lazhar Bouazzi Mar 2017

The Seagull

Across the leaden sky
A gull shooting a cry,
Hastens to his final task
Before the sky puts on his mask.

No one knew what his final task was
Except that his time drew to a pause
And that he had to hasten because
From the open he had to retreat.

This the bird knew, but he was wayward;
He swam in the airy waves, beak forward,
Skating-flying, but always eastward,
Heedless of the dark - like a poet.

©LazharBouazzi, 2017

Lazhar Bouazzi Jul 2018

Night in Carthage

In the yellow,
cold light
of the wine-dark
night,
'tween the brand-new mall
and the Roman Site,
he staggered
alone,
drunken
with "Magon"*
and memories.

Vast,
so vast is the night -
vast
as the memory
of an English
prairie,
and an emmer-haired
maiden
he'd walked
to the ferry
on a summery day.

Vast,
so vast
is a night
masquerading
as a want of sight.

© LazharBouazzi

"Magon" is a popular Tunisian wine named after the famous Tunisian (Carthaginian) author of the "Treatises on Agronomy, Winegrowing and Winemaking (eighth century BC. ) " when Tunisia was Europe's wine cellar.

Lazhar Bouazzi Sep 2017

Dying in the Dunes of Your Body

My hungry lips started to talk
To your lips in language hungry,
As my tongue began to unlock
The well of your language sundry,
Necking your North African mounds;
Halting at your salving shell pink,
To sip and sup your winy words
And faint and wake and rise and sink
In the waking sleep of the tongues
Of your fire
To pen my un–Sufi desire
And die in the dunes of your body.

© LazharBouazzi

Lazhar Bouazzi May 2017

The Rebellion of the Moon

The moon says the final word tonight -
Casual-recherché and light;
She, in the absence of the sun,
Leafs through the pages of the night
And shoots a side-look at the pond,
As her desire stretches far beyond
His specular contour.

© LazharBouazzi, Carthage, Tunisia

Lazhar Bouazzi Dec 2017

Evensong to the Rain

Make this want wither,
O Rain!

Dig a brook hither
In my vein,

And plant on either side
Of my pain -

Swaying thousands
Of bluebells.
LazharBouazzi (December 15, 2017)

Lazhar Bouazzi Jul 2018

Pilgrim of the Mall

What ails thee, pilgrim of the mall,
Silent grief of the fall,
Pushing beneath her branded mask
A chariot to manage her task?

A writ of habeas corpus on paper:
"'Garden rocket,' 'lamp,' and 'mirror,'
For your inward eye and the terror
Of the still blast of oldhood and time
That left you with no place but rhyme -
And the mall."

What ails thee, woman of language
And the fall?

© LazharBouazzi, 3 July, 2018

Lazhar Bouazzi Aug 2018

Pond in The Belvédère Park, Downtown Tunis, On 4 August, 2018

A green pond
In a leafless park
Held with an iron bond
His stagnant equilibrium.

©LazharBouazzi, 5 August, 2018

Lazhar Bouazzi Jun 2017

The Moon, Repost

The moon,
A hollow
Saint Jacques
Shell
Whose kernel
Lovers
And language figures
Had wasted through the flow
Of time,
Came
To this eerie pond
A dry vagabond -
Now a dweller
Of the surface deep.
(C) LazharBouazzi

Lazhar Bouazzi Apr 2018

Winds on the Rocks

As I look back into my life
I think to myself:

"I sped when I was a boy. I sped
To out-distance time."

But now when I look at the dark-green rocks
In my neighborhood, by the trembling docks,

I say to the rocks: "I go, you stay.
You stay for the winds to breathe upon thee."

(c) LazharBouazzi

Lazhar Bouazzi Jan 2017

The Seagull

Across the oozy leaden sky
A seagull with a battle cry
Hurried to his ultimate task
Before the sky puts on his mask.

Nobody knew what his task was
Except that his time drew to a pause
And that he had to hurry because
From the open he had to retreat.

The bird knew that but he was wayward
Swimming in the airy wave beak forward
Skating flying but always eastward
Heedless of the dark like a poet.

LazharBouazzi, January 20, 2017

Lazhar Bouazzi May 2016

A Poet's Prayer in the Desert

“Rain for my words,”
Cried the poet.
But the rain would not acquiesce;
For she dreaded a languagekiss.

© LazharBouazzi, Carthage - Tunisia, May 14, 2016

Lazhar Bouazzi Jul 2017

Cafeteria by the Road

I
In the cold silence of the area
Rose a lonesome cafeteria,
Outside of it hooded forms -
Scaly horns -
Perched on white, plastic chairs
Like fifteen owls on a wire.
II
A grey-green bird in the distance
Sang a three-note song with insistence.
He sang on not to the white folks
But to the cold he tried to coax.
He sang to a spot desolate -
Sure thing, he sang to punctuate it.
©LazharBouazzi, July, 2017

The whole of stanza one is a true story. On the way to my home town, Kasserine, I did see the scene involving about fifteen hooded people sitting outside a café with their backs against the wall, apparently waiting for sunset and the cannonball that would announce the break of the fast in Ramadhan.
Stanza II (with the bird) is pure poetic invention.

Lazhar Bouazzi Jul 2018

Pilgrim of the Mall (latest version)

What ails thee, pilgrim of the mall,
Silent, earthen grief of the fall,
Pushing beneath her branded mask
A chariot to manage her task?

A writ of habeas corpus on paper:
'"Garden rocket," "lamp," and "mirror"'
For your inward eye and the terror
Of the still blast of oldhood and time
That left you with no place but rhyme -
And the mall.
What ails thee, woman of language
And the fall?

© LazharBouazzi

Lazhar Bouazzi Mar 2018

The Tortoise

The good thing about a tortoise
is that he carries time on his
shoulder
and does not have to run
to cry.

He is like a river
flowing backward,
climbing the rocks on which her mother
had bitten
to un-feel the pain of origination
(so as to cast a glimpse on her nest
in the mountain).

He is a figure, a language, a sun
whose force is sustained by his own spirit -
unrelated: unlike a star,
a night, a candlelight.

He is his own version
of the light and the rite
and the fight sisyphean.

© LazharBouazzi

Lazhar Bouazzi Jan 2017

Love

Please,
Forgive
This counterpoint.

For
loving you now
Is off the point.

Now that the wild
Lilies
Halt in the cities

And build their nests
In the asphalt.

LazharBouazzi, February 1, 2017

Lazhar Bouazzi Sep 2017

The Bard

I am the quill that marks
The water-walled history
Of the sea as it may -
A swan, be it, or a black-backed
Gull.

I am the pariah who
Failed to posit his load on
A hill that hung low, like a
Sunless moon, but who can still
hark the dark
Rumbling of repetition.

I am the Quixote who took
On the wind who made the mill
Sob like a bronze leaf in grief,
Seared by the passage of
A sluggish summer.

I am the pariah, the
Quixote, and the historian
Of the rainbow runner.

©LazharBouazzi, August 5, 2017

Lazhar Bouazzi Jul 2017

The Ant & The Grasshopper

I
When the ant had told,
That December cold
Night, the grasshopper,
Who had spent his summer
Singing in the tree,
To go dance now that
He was hungry & free,
He didn’t show the hurt,
Because he was alert
To the pain
Of winter and language,
So he left the village.
II
When he, thirteen years
Later,
Came back as a baker
(Who worked in the day
And sang in the night)
He went to see the ant,
A blue guitar gift-wrapped -
In his hand.
© LazharBouazzi, TUNISIA

Lazhar Bouazzi Oct 2018

Dying in your Dunes

My hungry lips commenced to talk
To your lips in language hungry,
As my tongue began to unlock
The well of your language sundry,

Necking your North African mounds,
Halting at your salving shell pink,
To sip and sup your winy words
And faint and wake and rise and sink

In the waking sleep of your fire
To pen my Sufi desire,
And die in the dunes of your body.

© LazharBouazzi

Lazhar Bouazzi Jul 2018

Writing

Writing is
the frozen music
of an ellipsis -
a silent song
of a lonesome poet
who sings in the dark
between howling winds
crossing swords
in the white shades
of unseen things -

a winter on the pole
on whose obverse side
there's Rio,
and mirth,
and dancing,
and the sun's critique
of hegemony.

© LazharBouazzi

Lazhar Bouazzi Aug 2018

The Apprentice

A novice
in poetry,
he can color
a young tree,
a sky in the summer,
an ocean,
or even a dancing
emotion.

But pleading
with the daimon
to come sing
to the sparkling
thunder
that would tear
the rusty dome
asunder,
is a different story
altogether.

(c) LazharBouazzi

Lazhar Bouazzi Nov 2017

The Beggar of La Goulette*

A beggar I once met
At the port of La Goulette
Greeted me with a nod
But he spoke to me not.

A beggar I once met
At the port of La Goulette
Made me wonder all night:
What's a beggar who beggs not?
c) LazharBouazzi
*La Goulette is a seaport town in the northern suburbs of Tunis.

Lazhar Bouazzi Jan 2017

(Tunisian Haiku)

Old eyeglasses on wetland.
Deep footmarks in cold sand.
Green tide takes all.
LazharBouazzi, January 11, 2017

Lazhar Bouazzi Jun 2018

Requiem for the Wind

******* is imagination
And the words
Crack the asphalt of the port
Like poppies. For the wind is gone.

And the sea must now sing alone
To the sunken city -
Underneath.
(C) LazharBouazzi, 4 June, 2018

Lazhar Bouazzi Nov 2016

Night in Tunisia

In the yellow,
cold light
of the wine-dark
night _
between the new mall
and the Roman Site _
he staggered
alone,
drunken
with "Magon"*
and memories.

Vast,
so vast is the night _
vast
as the memory
of an English
prairie,
and an emmer-haired
maiden
he had walked
to the ferry
on a summery day.

Vast,
so vast
is a night
masquerading
as a want of sight.

© LazharBouazzi

"Magon" is a popular Tunisian wine named after the famous Carthaginian author of the "Treatises on Agronomy, Winegrowing and Winemaking (eighth century BC. ) " when Tunisia was Europe's wine cellar.

Lazhar Bouazzi Jun 2017

Benzart, a Summer Poem*

A crimson boat waives
the flow of the waves
as a blonde figure craves
an infernal sun.

Next to the maiden
and the dandy-fella,
blossoms a vermillion
umbrella
whose role was to play
a timid cellar
for two red apples
and one apricot
the blonde damsel
could have brought
to quench her burning
want
of the lustful monster.

Closing her ice-blue eyes,
the fair woman,
her sinful inspiration
did summon
to come carve
on her body so sullen
the orange vision
of the new Benzart bridge.

© LazharBouazzi, Carthage, TUNISA

*"Benzart" is the Tunisian name for “Biserta” or “Bizerte”- a beach town on the northern coast of Tunisia.

Lazhar Bouazzi May 2016

The Ant and the Grasshopper

When the ant had told
that December cold
night the grasshopper,
who had spent Summer
singing in the tree,
to go dance now that
he was hungry but free,
he didn’t show the hurt,
for he was alert
To the discomfort
of Winter and language;
but he left the village.

When he, years later,
Came back as a baker
(who sang in the day
and worked in the night),
the first thing he did
was to go see the ant -
a gift-wrapped guitar
in his hand.

(c) LazharBouazzi

Lazhar Bouazzi Aug 2016

Untold Stories

An oblique path cutting in two a blue hill,
bathed in a cobalt ocean of morning glories.
On the blue hill there were also a red mill,
Crickets, ants, bees, and many-hued damselflies.

A haven was the fresh upside-down coquille
For long stories untold and movements still
Of difference and dragonflies of fluttering
Over a bluesky ground of mute uttering.

On a dry log pitched not too far from the mill,
Rose an artless sign in the hushed sound of the hill;
Each of whose letters was written in blueberry -
Surely placed there by a traveler in a hurry:
“No matter how often a road is traveled by,
It never tells twice the selfsame story.”

(c) LazharBouazzi, Carthage, TUN, August 23, 2016

Lazhar Bouazzi May 2016

Cactus

Poets are lonesome cactus vendors
In whose palms grow hurtful ascenders
From having to peel colored wonders
To those who dread thorny fruits - the dwellers -
With too many cores inside.

© LazharBouazzi

Lazhar Bouazzi Jun 2018

The Sky Near my House

On the canvas of the Sky,
As high as can see the eye,
Two figures hung: a cowbell
And a sailing boat as well.

On the canvas of the Sky,
As far as would reach the eye,
Bell on bell, boat on boat, high
They linger for a moment,

Then they all wave good-bye,
Like a choir of echoes.

(C) LazharBouazzi

— The End —