One day bleeds
into the next

Leaves wounds
that won’t heal
measures our moments
into finite statements
that knit the hours
into a tapestry of tedium

Where is the joy
I was promised?
Where
the lively waltz?

I grieve before every hour
and bend before fate’s great weight
tremble incessantly
and starve in the midst of plenty

Yet I hold my head up
march on
determined to reach that far shore
where fate will take us
and luck will leave us.

I’m up early
as always
swimming in the currents of
a sweet morning
in summer
in Oregon
as if for the first time

Much like the morning
years past
when I woke
with a new girl
in a cemetery in Eugene

We went there to escape the heat
slept on a blanket
naked in the night

So alive were we
and in love

Practicing, perhaps,
for the day when sleep
and death
converge.

The first thing I saw early this morning
When I pulled back the light green curtains
Was a hectic blue 'n orange butterfly
Wavering in the fair sun of my garden -
'tween the enclosed well and the laurel tree.

On a sidewalk, red and radiant,
Strutted two maidens together,
A turquoise skirt wore the one,
A chocolate T-shirt the other.

Jubilant they were together,
As the cadence of their laughter
Waved in the air like Tunisian silk.

No harvest did my screen display today,
No mountain range did loom far in the distance;
All that was shown were a laughing sidewalk,
And a quivering sun in a small garden.

(c) LazharBouazzi

There are tricks
the eyes play on us

Tonight
when I stare into the darkness

I see rain

A summer of drought
and I see rain.

First,
I strive for beauty
I wait for the bell to chime
the lightning to strike

Today, it seems,
the skies are clear
those chimes of midnight
are silenced
they boycott my breath
heap ash on the urgency of ringing
and leave me dizzy
in my decline.

But if the past
truly is prologue
it will all come round again.

Language will make its magic.
Sweetness will ooze from
the open wound
of my heart.

There will be words
in the order and rhythm
in which they were intended.

And poetry will breathe yet again.