You're daring enough to have ventured into the night,
he sounded delirious in the wispy light.

Half a mile across the lagoon
moondrunk Ridleys in ghostly shadows
would be digging holes in the sands
to lay their lives for posterity
away from the phosphoric melody
leaving the orphaned to find their way
once the shells cracked under silica.

They look like a procession of mourners,
the man whispered between strokes of oars
sloshing the rising tides of the channel
his deft hands rowing the fastest
cutting across the half mile to Cuthbert Bay.

The night ripened enough by that time
unfolded the crawling shadows from the sea
slowing time in frameshot motions
of rows of celebrating marchers.

Dead of night the stars were burning out
and I called out to the boatman.

To this day I don't believe what I heard.

None was ever ferried back by the boatman.

Like hamsters on a wheel we ran
Away from horses hooves
Zig zagging through trees
To be hunted like deer
Hiding in holes
Covered in dirt
Crawling under rocks like insects

One by one, we fell.

In terror, we ran back to the place we knew best. Entered the darkness, remembering our way to the waterside.

Safety, of a kind.

The heavy moon poured light from the star laden sky. We merged from the thick copse to be bathed in the calming white of her rays.

Eyes drawn to the glint of the moons' light, touching the tops of the ripples in the water, made brighter still by the surrounding darkness.

Shimmering, like magic.

It was cold, perfectly cold, and the air was fresh and open, the kind of night the veil stays so thin into the night and you can almost see just by feeling. When you can feel the serene and endless expanse of the universe. An overwhelming sense of purity and clarity.

Nothing, and everything.

The slight movement of air on the trees and the gentle lapping of water on the bank told us we were safe, for now at least.

We returned to the real through trees and fields, passing streams and reeds along the lakeside.

We were separated. I knew then, I felt it. I was strangely comforted by its sadness.

Peaceful sleep, first for an age.

I woke before dawn clutching a vision. A message so clear it could never be dream. Time passed, finally their eyes caught mine and stared into my soul. Then it was gone, in an instant hidden.

The vision was realised.

As I look back into my life
I think to myself:

"I sped when I was a boy. I sped
To out-distance time."

But now when I look at the dark-green rocks
In my neighborhood, by the trembling docks,

I say to the rocks: "I go, you stay.
You stay for the winds to breathe upon thee."

(c) LazharBouazzi

Angels make the bouquets 
I see as I thumb through this Chagall book
life is served on a bed of blue sky
aspirations made of soft shells 
like molting ***** 
these flowers bloom risking penury 
to offer a glimpse of eternity 

make themselves windows of the blooming tree 
a prism in a subjective room 
they chose their lives in alternative 
and reflect themselves as canals of rainbows 

I sip a glass of wine and ponder this page
the museums of silken selves the artist left for us
Chagall painted old age so devoid of color 
and vitality 
because he knew as we age
we empty our imaginations
into the angels
who then arrive
holding flowers
for the young