One night soon
someone
will strike a match
on a stone
and read my name.

Her feet rose and fell
between fields of paddy

the grass bowed
then looked up on her way.

If only she had wings
and the winds carried her to her sister
she could land right on the yard of her hut
and take her home by the return flight
but her mind soared no less
so before the sun favored the west
she was right by her
laughing and talking like the yore
with only a line of vermilion
that she felt had come between them.

Soon she looked around
and making sure no one was watching
brought out from her skirt a mango.

She gave it to her like
she was giving a piece of her heart
plump yellow green
with the most delicious nectar hidden within
and when she narrowed her lips
to drink from the gift
her tears poured like the summer rain
mingling with the cries of the parched earth.

Speech
can become
touch,
depending on
intonation.

Writing
can become
dance,
depending on
the typewriter.

(c) LazharBouazzi

I love you
so much
despite  
the
countless
sediments
of  knowledge
that were
bestowed
on us
by the victims
of their own
ignorance,
whom I
rarely curse
but oftentimes
weep.

© Lazhar Bouazzi, Carthage, April 13, 2016

Simplicity
Is the
Act of giving shape
To chaos -
An affair of alchemy,
Like turning sweat
Into drops of
Silver.

(c) LazharBouazzi

After so long a journey
The traveler needed rest
So he picked one of two trees -
That was in his eye the best.

Getting off his “Clio”*
He stepped on a flower
Whose color had braved alone
The asphalt of the highway.

From his car he moved away
And faced a trench gaping gray
Which he was unable to cross
To where the water-spring was.

He yelled into the ditch
Trying to get an answer
Only his echo returned
For want of a transfer

Then a scarlet sand rose,
pulled by the small man’s toes,
Jumped right under his nose
Into the chasm with no bottom.

Back to the tree he returned
But the whole site was now ferned -
Rhizomes wherever he turned:
Underground, too, were now the
badlands.

(c) Lazhar Bouazzi, April, 2016

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

O crimson, fresh sapling
O bronze Hell&Heaven;'s gate
You impress on a poet’s fate
Your wanton, insatiable burning.

© Lazhar Bouazzi, April, 2016

The sun forgave itself
long ago, for burning too bright,
it scorched our touching palms,
cheek to cheek, it burnt.*

That night we whispered
A song to the reeds,
Let it drift down that
Wayward line of memories,
Let it settle in the graves
Of each bed we slept in.

We let fate colour our
Hearts recklessly, like a
Child who can't stay
Within the confined lines
Of their drawing book.

Until the dawn began,
And we let our skin simmer,
Melting on each other's lips.
Until we are only skeletons
Embracing through a
World set in flames.

A finger *****; a dilation.
The cracked rib on your life side.
I long to paint pictures of the subconscious;
the places we never get to see.
And as the sun starts to set,
as night eclipses over the earth
I will scream until my throat is bleeding.
I will drag my body across the pavement,
punch my fists into walls
leaving the stain of humanity on every street corner.
I will cut across the plain of existence with my fingertips and
I will pull reality from its womb.
I will drag it on the ground behind me
until it is bloodied and worn -
I'll scream in it s face and ask,
Why?
I want existence to feel everything I have felt;
Ten times over, amplified and without mercy.