I feel them staring, glaring --
I'm never sure.
My mind rewinds
to a different shore,
where fish have armored skin
that protects them from
pressures of Earthen spin.

They have legs like fingers,
the fish, the people,
that tramples me, samples me
until I'm withered, feeble.

The stares are like bugs,
striding across with curious rage.
Biting, learning, living
in the hollow of my rib cage.

Tractor humming happily
In the dim daylight
Seeping through heavy clouds.

The soil out here needs water,
Rains are welcome for now.
I kiss fresh coffee by the

Window, listening to the drizzle
And swallows whistling past.
Yes, she's on my mind.

I breathe in the humid scents of
Early country Summer,
Feeling soft arms reach around

Me from behind; her forehead
Against the back of my neck.
Something whispered.

Soon. You'll see me soon.
Hear my voice. Soon. You'll
Meet me. Soon.

I shrug off the fantasies and
Walk my cup back to the
Table.

I know who she is.
She has no idea I exist.
For now.

****, I love this juvenile
Feeling of infatuation with a
Stranger,

Stealing glanzes at her Facebook
Pictures, grinning to myself about
Acting like a stalker,

Not even feeling guilty;
I stand for my innocent intentions.
She'll never hear a word from

Me. No friend request or desperate
Attempts at contact.
She has a room in my Palace of

Imagination-
Where she sometimes comes out
To wander around and

Bless me with her presence.
So impossibly beautiful.
Supernova smile,

Elegant tattoos.  
Eyes full of kindness, like two
Soothing suns. Night sky hair.  

Real, yet invisible until I
Close my eyes and taste the skin
Of her temple as she leans her

Head against mine and points
Towards the horizon.
Look how green everything has

Become...
I know.
It's so breathtaking I even

Imagine sharing it with someone
I love.
Then she's gone again,

And I am alone with the rain and
The nestbound swallows. And the  
Purring of a distant John Deere

Outside an open window where
We stood in love, as vividly
As within a really real dream.

I do not turn to poetry
to rescue me from memory;
on the contrary,
I conjure the red humming bee
on the bluegreen rosemary tree,
I teased when I was a carefree
boy, in the backyard,
only to roll with the punches -
aye, with the punches - of synecdoche.

© LazharBouazzi, May 2016

The cello
mother of music
sings peacefully
from the eye of the storm

A peace purchased
at the price of certitude

Piano provides counterpoint
restrained
elegant
its curtains of sound
dream their own dreams

and a longing violin
makes love to
the air itself

We march deliberately
to this tempo
stepping in time
to the sweet
and terrifying strains
of our own mortality

The composer
died
at thirty one years.
Why - how
have I lived so long?

Perhaps
to hear this music as if for
the first time
and so share it
with the sky.