The table was set.
The morning was fine.
The world lay reflected
in two glasses of wine.

An empty plate
reflected sunshine,
The morning compressed
in two glasses of wine.

What did she see
in undulations of wine?
Were the shapes a portent?
Was there a design?

Were the glasses a mirror
or shadowy sign?
Perhaps they were more
than just glasses of wine.

She and a friend
sat down to dine.
Their reflections drank deeply
from two glasses of wine.

My father died
from a gun shot wound
to the head

self-inflicted

Don't get all weird about it.

Fathers die
and their passing
though certain
is rarely easy.

So what can I say of this man
so many years
after his emphatic end?

I can say what Whitman said
of Lincoln:
"O Captain, my Captain.
Rise up and hear the bells."

But he will not.

He was ever-present
wise and alert
a boxer in life
a fighter in every way.

And I grew up with the gloves on
quick
elusive
and thanks to him
successful in every ring.  

He died
******* on a lit tobacco stick

Emphysema was gonna
take him down
so he pulled his own trigger
saved his family that way
though that's a longer tale

Therefore
and whereas
this is a belated requiem
for a man I loved.
My Captain.
Dear and departed
these many years
may he rest in peace
as he never rested
in life.

Poets, like
madmen and prophets,
are banned from
the Kingdom of Reason,
as they are
the progeny of the sun
(the sun who illumines as he blinds)
and the siblings
of the rays
who never tire
of beating
the world into
magnificent new shapes
that fascinate us
all – including
Unwavering Moon whose
lonesome secret is to be
madly in love
with the rainbow.

© LazharBouazzi, May 26, 216

How many tears do you think filled the oceans?
Mine threaten to flood the whole of my world;
and when I sit there at the bottom of the ocean
quiet, and too tired to weep,
I won’t feel the grace upon my cheek,
and you won’t see the tear I shed.

We were born with this box.
It keeps contained in the small of us,
yet is infinite; a world all its own.
And how do you fill a box that knows no bounds?

With love.

Love, fills the aching seems,
to the point where we touch the very edge of our universe,
like hands gliding over the surface of water.
The world within us blooms
into a flourishing home;
our soul set free
of a box that felt like a solitary well of confinement;
we find even sometimes, our box overflows.

But take our love away
and pain is found inside us,
blanketing and filling the absence of everything
Love had once touched.

It’s then you ask God,
how many tears filled the ocean?

I had been at the bottom of the ocean
for so long, waiting for the answer,
that I hadn’t noticed I am now floating,
risen to the surface of this new ocean,
laying on the back of my grief,
among the sun and the stars.

Years later
muffled like new snowfall
this ash
permeating teeth and skin.

Back then, I was still naive enough to trust
Old Jimmy when he offered to fly me
over the blast zone in his beat-up Cessna
the words Scenic Tours peeling off its purple tail.

His latent appetite would later manifest  
on the ride home in his musty Cadillac
the passenger door dented shut
preventing an easy exit.

That day
gray extended
as far as eyes could see
denuded trunks laid to rest
in perfect unison

we flew
for miles and miles
over nothing living

just ash
permeating teeth and skin
fallen matchsticks
and men.