Blue, sea green night
the moon's gone missing
lorn shore, footprints and broken shells
my heart an empty ocean to fill
without you my love, further
than the planets and stars
how long this ache
of blood and cells?

A fighting man
and now he's gone
May he never be forgotten
How he led his country towards peace
away from defeat and destruction
Rising above the powers that be
Knocking them down
Muhammad Ali

A poet, a boxer, a comedian
but, mostly a fighter,
One beautiful bad man
If you ask me, we need more of these
I speak of the Greatest
Muhammad Ali

Writing is
the frozen music
of an ellipsis,
the silent song
of a lonesome poet
who sings in the dark
among howling winds
crossing swords
in the white shades
of unseen things -
a winter on the Pole
on whose  obverse side
there's Rio,
and dancing
and mirth
and the sun's critique
of hegemony.

© Lazhar Bouazzi, May 31, 2016

Stars gather
In a sky nocturnal
Observing the deeds of  
We creatures infernal
Might it be…
We’re the ones on display
For the universe to discuss
Perhaps it is the stars
That are watching us

I dreamed of my father
crossing the fields
on his one-eyed tractor
mowing acres of sadness
heading east of a moon
that'll be gone tomorrow
and I waded the creek
beneath a ridge
where my mother is shearing
dead roses and the smell
of those flowers floating
to the foot of the mountains
reminds me of her hair
and my father's laughter
disappearing across the hill.

I was already born in love with you
A body shaped for your love
A love that a body cannot hold alone

I was born in love with you
and with you
A You that I have studied from the start of times that made me Me
and You

I was already born in love with you
Knowing such love cannot only be reserved for an I apart
but for the variegated forms of you as I
all as the universe a truth
And that’s how
And that’s why
I have shaped
By one of your
Word
By one of your loving
Touch
As I have shaped
for you

Today I battle
my own negativity
the dark side of
my moon
glowing cold
in the sear
of burns
those little
inflamed live
scars receiving
the salt
of tears
that I gather
in opaque blue
and indigo-hues
in the privacy
of the soft spaces
in the drawers
of my heart
little aches
that grow
as the hours
get smaller
little quakes
on low
in emotions'
faded squalor
and as I plunge
over that
spiritual abyss
draw in my
knees, let the
winds brush
my lips
in a mocking
lovers'  kiss
and try to catch
that beating mass
as it bursts
right through
my chest,
in broken slips
of shattered
glass
I tell myself
in whispers
"No, warrioress!
This time
you will not
be destroyed"
and I fling
my heart,
so bruised
into the
burning,
golden
void