The moon, a hollow
Saint Jacques shell,
whose kernel
lovers
and language figures
had wasted through the flow
of time,
came
to this eerie pond
a dry vagabond -
now a dweller
of the surface deep.

© LazharBouazzi, Carthage, TUN, September 3, 2016

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.

I am officially too old
left it all at the station
lost my ticket
and finally
busted by the conductor
for being a poet and a ***
the holy two-fer

Never thought the joke
would go on this long
never imagined
I'd be ******* oxygen
in a posh bar
with Helen of Troy
and me in my cups

Yet here we are
the ships have sailed
the vagabonds have stumbled
home
every swan has flown

And between you and me
Jack
(and while she's in the lady's room)
I am told I was born of a woman
on this day
sixty four years ago

I don't believe it

Birthdays are make-believe
every crease and wrinkle
in the fabric of time
every line in my face
is a testament
to an intricate conspiracy
the stars aligned against me
and on my birthday, no less

They say this ride has a conclusion
people pass on
I have seen fields of grim stones
that attest to this fact

But I'm not so sure.
At this late date
I'm still thinking
I might beat this rap.