Everything is asleep
and in pain, in love
and dreaming
about another life
I say to myself,
it is time I take my own
lookout, unfaithful
sailors know they can't
see a thing but they keep
their place on the prow
out there in the darkness
where boats are colliding,
oh yes, they are blind
or awake feeling the dark
like light, like those levels
of cold and heat underwater,
you know what I mean,
when you are dreaming
or in danger, that place
where fish live and sleep,
sometimes I think I understand
everything,  but I know that
I am wrong, and incredible
as it seems, the shadow I see
when I'm hung, I want to think
of hideouts in the mountains
where a man can go to die there.

The good thing about a tortoise
Is that he carries time on his
shoulder
and does not have to run
to cry.
He is like a river
flowing backward,
climbing  the rocks on which her mother
had bitten
to un-feel the pain of origination,
so as to cast a glimpse on her nest
in the mountain.
He is a figure, a language, a sun
whose force is sustained by his own spirit -
unrelated, unlike a star,
a candle, a night.
He is his
own version
of the light,
and the rite,
and the fight
Sisyphean.

© Lazhar Bouazzi, Carthage, TUN, July 18, 2016. Revision made on July 25, 2016.

Teary eyes, crocked lips
Broken faith complementing crooked hips
Factory of life they tell,
wounded souls, whispers to hell
Losing faith, into voids
Body aches yet to avoid
How this makes me stronger I ask
making it bitter for every task
my soul cries and pleads
body is something it needs
for if there is no strength in body to support
what is the meaning of these milestones that I report
I fear I’ll lose my existence
no one will remember this soul in any co-incidence
for again I plead for strength in this body
Will power doesn’t seem enough for a crippled body.

I love you
And you love me
Sounds like the perfect mix
But you do not
Love my skin tone
Or crippling anxiety
Or tears down my face
You love
My laughter
And smile
And attention
While I love every piece of you
You find problems I keep trying to resolve
And change
Just for you
Because
I love you
And you love me
Just not all of me