Tripping over
a mountain
of paper
filled with manic
ramblings
to the grim
reaper
or to Venus

Who could tell?

There is not a big
difference between
love and
hell

in the excitement
of your kiss
flowers and
dreams of
strange seas
lips of steel
dark shadowy
isles.

I
He was intoxicated
by the scent of the coffee
dancing in the morning
to his mother’s humming.
II
Then a blacksmith - his father -
taught him how to hammer
form out of chaos
in the muddle of force
and a sweaty anvil.
III
Now if he wished to see
the sunness of Sun
and the greenness of Tree
he would summon the specter
of an Arab maiden - Fatma -
who was once Berber
to come write on his face
with her soothing finger:
“Salam, my anguished lover.”
IV
When green-eyed Fatma comes
the wreaths of coffee
Would come with her
writing in the air;
and all the songs of history
would come marching too,
in battle array,
like an army dressed
in civilian clothes
for a dance in Rio.
V
Fatma’s hair –
a still cascade
of thin goldeness,
a tide of watery fire,
a flight motionless  
of a million birds who
speak in tongues
and laugh
to the stone unlettered
of his fidgety cenotaph .

© LazharBouazzi, Carthage, TUN, August 27, 2016

So, please, take my soul by the throat,
and crack my ribs with a fist full of longing.
Bend my body over the promise of forever
and take me down with a narrative that is ours

for this life means nothing,

     when my time isn't broken by you.

You're my rock even when you're crumbling.
When I'm stumbling and mumbling,
You pick me up,
Dust me off,
And lend me your voice for clarity.

It's a rarity for me to count costs without questioning,
Because I've got a head full of hostages, and
even when I let them out slowly
One at a time
To the firing line,
You help me blow out their candles.

You're crumbling,
But I got a shovel and a bucket to put you in.
I'll carry you til my hand hurts.
I'll carry you till my knuckles bleed.
I'll find that solid rock to place you on
And build you back up again.

See,
You don't get the luxury
Of melting away...
Not today
Not ever...
No way!

For you are my rock,
and I WILL build you back up again,
Because I love you,
And I promised you I would.
And that's a promise I plan on keeping
Even if it means the end of me,
Because I love you,
And that's what you mean to me.

There was a poem I wrote before this one
I wrote it somewhere between midnight and morning,
you know, the place where the tides are too heavy
they're cement,
too blue
they're black,
too sharp
they're knives
and you can't help
but drown.
The place where I sank into a well of words and emerged
as black as every single one of my demons.
You know, the place where the feelings come out
and where there is no delete button,
no escape plan,
no Plan A to begin with and no Plan B to end it.
I poured everything onto that poem,
every **** feeling
and every horrible thought that had the audacity to come true.
And when I realized what I had done,
I took that poem
and I burned it—
every drip of ink
and every drop of emotion.

Father Time is pushing me along
But I don't want to go on
For every step that I take
Every tick the clock makes
Takes the memories farther away
I fear for the day
When time does it's shading
To my memories it will do it's raiding

I don't want to forget your smell, or how your arms felt, when you hugged me tight
I don't want to forget your voice,  when you consoled me in the middle of the night
I don't want to forget your face,  or those beautiful blue eyes
I don't want to forget all you said that was wise

I'll hold on to those memories tight
As I stay here in this life and fight
But I know they will slip through my hand
Like the hourglass's sand
I know from experience time will take it's toll
The pictures and memories of you away from me will start to roll

But the pain of you being gone
Will stay with me my whole life long
It seems the only thing time does not take is the love and the sorrow
THAT,.... it let's linger on way into all of the tomorrow's

everyone associates the sound of silence with calm
the sound of silence can be terrifying
the sound of silence is not silent
the sound of silence is unbearable pain as those voices scream out in agony

“youre worthless”
“no one cares about you”
“you should just **** yourself”
“youre the ugliest thing ive ever seen”

the sound of silence
the sound of
the sound
the

the sound of i wish everything would just **shut up.

Guns are innocent
The gun does not **** people
People **** people