Hello ,
Take my hand . . .
we will step out
onto the stars and run
across the Milky Way

We will swim
in the pools of
glistening light and
share to our heart's delight

We will catch comets . . .
putting them in our pockets
making wishes
along the way

We will visit the darkest moons
and give them light
from far across the galaxies

But the most heavenly light of all
will reside in your smile

Like Breugel's Icarus
my brother Michael
dropped into the depths of the sea
unnoticed

Born at the bottom
of a crater of the moon
the sweetest foundling
since creation

His swaddling clothes
were denim and the blues
his pillow
a bottle of rye

This sweet soul
lived half a life
in halfway houses
and cheap motels
reeking of cigarettes
reeling from the *****

When he punched his ticket
on the midnight train to eternity
no one was surprised

I arranged the cremation
a fire that burned
more than one life

I gathered his ashes
and set out
for the crest of the Sierra Nevada

Alone
with my memories,
his ashes
and the cold stone
of those adamant heights

and then east
through the wastes of Nevada
the endless expanse
of the basin and range

A pilgrimage, of sorts
dedicated to nothing
and no one

Just the upthrust range
the solemn and self-absorbed peaks
the dessicated pine
and a wind
that scoured the soul.

....
From womb  to born
Every morn
Each breath
Even on the road of death
I’m alone
Walking with broken bone

While the Summer wind blows
In this narrow lane
Love flows in my wide vein
As the Streams of heavy rain
Alone else
Only the past tense

In the dark, I hark
A distant bark
In the dream there was
A beautiful park
With a few sign of paws
Yet I couldn’t find any cause

The Streams going down
While flowing in this old town
The Stone grew worn and torn
Rolling else alone
Like my broken bone
.......
@Musfiq us shaleheen

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