In daylight he was a realist,
Anchored in a world of objects.
But under pale starlight,
Apparitions of her kisses
Danced across his skin

Desire for her, he told himself,
was a craving for form,
a way to fill the night
with soothing fiction.
But the truth was that he could no longer tell
love from addiction.

When life feels suspended by a delicate thread
Change is inevitable
I sometimes feel stifled
Tightly constricted
Like a chrysalis
Struggling against transformation
I oppose the transition
And need more time to adapt
Today
A butterfly tapped against my window
Like change asking to come in
If I can comply with Grace
Maybe I too can transcend
And withstand the butterfly effect

I lost my first
wedding ring
that summer

we floated
on inner tubes
coupled together,
drinking ice-cold
beer in the sun.

A flash of gold
and it was gone.

I lost the boots
my father wore
in Vietnam.

I lost the first
pocketknife
I ever owned.

I lost my mother.

I lost my way
in college once,
watching heavy snow
smother the foothills
and switchbacks,
watching mountain
birds turn wide circles
above rough canyons.

I lost track of time but
found my father’s gun.

Winter will always
sound like the whir
of a cylinder spun in
an unfurnished room.

Come to me.
             your inscribed
                slashes of verse
                branded upon
             the juice of
           my tongue
     a specter
    of the ultimate gift
      as we allow
         the magic
              to rise
               and peel off in
         swathed, aching
         layers,
                undone
Each stratum of
  dermis shed
       is a prayer for
         our succulent
                     redemption
                        Each shadow of
                          silky cuttlefish caress
                   a plea for sanctity
            or perhaps simply
            being loved
        into a frenzy
        of sanity
            healing in waves
                    of electric eyes
                          You open me
                    like a holy book
              and I am suddenly
                  filled with light
           as you unlock
the blessings
from my spinal fluid
and I am a priestess
  on her altar
       arms raised,
         love braised
              into slick-lit wonder
               a spiral cone rising from
                            ground to crown
                 chakric palette pulsating
            phosphorescent ripples
on deep-sea creatures
Your ubiety
       slakes my naked,
            somatic anatomy
                   a mere shelter
                          for our souls    
                       a working
       of muscle and skin
    with heart strings pumping
                    the essence within
                     Our brainwaves
                                    sizzle in
                         glandular fire
                        as pheromones
                       envelope us
                   like incense
This goes far beyond the
wet cuntflush of desire
beyond the embellishment
of moistened sword
  It is the sacred dance
         of souls that merge
            before even touching
                      pre-verbal animal
                   first light of mankind
                          in ancient swells
                                 of earth that
                           rise like sparks
                the constellations
           of firework chimes
       in arcs of
chiseled
         dark

Where the river abandons herself to the creek
and the mudbank is cratered with crabclaws
waits the old man.

He doesn't know his years
but his ears are a sonic gift
catching the tonal variations of tides
seemingly for eons
evolving with the mangrove map
into a flawless tracker
of how far the moon would recline
for ***** to be holed out
and what shoreline the water would touch
before the shrimps starlight driven
make a beeline for the net.

I encountered him once
in the absurdity of a time
when I was high
and he lowly crouching
was making art by the creek.

Who was the poet
I could never tell.

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

At first light
it comes unbidden

Mourning--
clenching deep
enough to sound your soul
Stone on a string
sent to tell the depth of drowning--
in the tears
without a cry
weary beyond the sigh
No act of will
This weight--
gives no resistance
to the gravity of ocean's metal-gray
They seep along a sloping cheek
in silence

“Only lovers ever go this deep
It's strange,” they say