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Jul 2019 · 993
Summer in Kasserine
Lazhar Bouazzi Jul 2019
Look at the dormant summer noon
Drowsing by the pregnant tree
And lulled to his vision of the moon
By a wandering honey bee
Whose songs are so sweet and subdued
Like a score of apples waiting  in
A cluster
Not knowing when they will be plucked
So they, too, hung on a sleeper’s specter.

© LazharBouazzi, TUNISIA
May 2019 · 992
Stories Untold
Lazhar Bouazzi May 2019
An oblique path cutting in two a blue hill  
Bathed in a cobalt ocean of morning glories.
On the blue hill there were also a red mill,
Crickets, ants, bees, and many-hued damselflies.

A haven was the fresh upside-down coquille
For long stories untold and movements still
Of difference and dragonflies of fluttering
Over a bluesky ground of mute uttering.

On a dry log pitched not too far from the mill,
Rose an artless sign in the sound unseen of the hill;
Each of whose letters was written in blueberry -
Surely placed there by a traveler in a hurry:
“No matter how often a road is traveled by,
It never tells twice the selfsame story.”

(c) LazharBouazzi, Tunisia
May 2019 · 771
Don Quixote & the Quill
Lazhar Bouazzi May 2019
The Don knew well
That the hell
He should raise
Would not be on the mill
That  sobbed on the hill.

So with his quill,
He dug a tunnel
In his encampment.

©LazharBouazzi
Apr 2019 · 694
The Apprentice Revised
Lazhar Bouazzi Apr 2019
A novice
in poetry,
he can color
an old tree,
a sky in the summer,
an ocean,
or even a dancing
emotion.

But pleading
with the daimon
to come and sing
to the sparkling
thunder
that would tear
the dark dome
asunder,
is another story
altogether.
(c)LazharBouazzi
Apr 2019 · 2.0k
Romantic Irony
Lazhar Bouazzi Apr 2019
Sunrays fell on the bower
Like a golden rain
And a bee kissed with the tongue a crimson flower
Like a song refrain
As a silky butterfly sweet as a shower
Poked fun at my pain.
© LazharBouazzi, TUNISIA
Mar 2019 · 727
On Birds & Butterflies
Lazhar Bouazzi Mar 2019
I saw two butterflies in the alley,
'Twixt the new well and the orange tree;
With the shade of the tree they seemed to dally
To tease the sun who, without them cannot be.
I overheard two blackbirds when I looked up:
“Why can’t we tease the shade like the butterflies?”
Said the maid-bird, pretending an orange to sup.

And before she could even realize,
The black bird spread his wings over her thighs.
In the throbbing blue flakes of the sky she cries
& she cries & she moans & she moans & she cries -
Unlike a Buddhist.
(c)LazharBouazzi
Mar 2019 · 1.0k
The Seagull
Lazhar Bouazzi Mar 2019
Shooting a battle cry
Athwart the leaden sky,
A gull hurried to his task
Before the sky wears his mask.

Nobody knew what his task was
Except that his time drew to a pause
And that he had to hurry because
From the open he had to retreat.

The bird knew this but he was wayward
Swimming in the airy wave, beak forward,
Skating, flying, but always eastward,
Heedless of the dark, like a poet.

(c) LazharBouazzi
Jan 2019 · 878
Evensong to the Rain
Lazhar Bouazzi Jan 2019
Make this want wither,
O Rain!

Dig a brook hither
In my vein,

And plant on either side
Of my pain

A score of dancing
Bluebells.
(C)LazharBouazi
Dec 2018 · 2.1k
It's Raining on Carthage
Lazhar Bouazzi Dec 2018
I
The rain falling now
In Carthage -
A nectar
Of rainness -
Is like the grains
Of couscous
Made the day of
Celebration.
II
In Carthage now
The scent of rain
Is like the sound of
Pain
Memory has lost
To imagination.

© LazharBouazzi
Nov 2018 · 3.2k
Rain
Lazhar Bouazzi Nov 2018
The silver music
That kisses my sight
And memory.

(c)LBouazzi, 25 November, 2O18
Lazhar Bouazzi Oct 2018
“A little bit of rain on my words,”
Cried the poet.
But the rain would not acquiesce
For she dreaded a languagekiss.

© LazharBouazzi
Oct 2018 · 880
Don Quixote
Lazhar Bouazzi Oct 2018
The Don knew well
That the hell
He raised
Was not on the mill
That  sobbed on the hill.

So with his quill,
He dug a tunnel
In his encampment.

©LazharBouazzi, 10 September, 2018
Oct 2018 · 3.4k
Dying in your Dunes
Lazhar Bouazzi Oct 2018
My hungry lips commenced to talk
To your lips in language hungry,
As my tongue began to unlock
The well of  your  language sundry,

Necking your North African mounds,
Halting at your salving shell pink,
To sip and sup your winy words
And faint and wake and rise and sink

In the waking sleep of  your fire
To pen my Sufi desire,
And die in the dunes of your body.

© LazharBouazzi
Aug 2018 · 2.9k
The Apprentice
Lazhar Bouazzi Aug 2018
A novice
in poetry,
he can color
a young tree,
a sky in the summer,
an ocean,
or even a dancing
emotion.

But pleading
with the daimon
to come sing
to the sparkling
thunder
that would tear
the rusty dome
asunder,
is a different story
altogether.

(c) LazharBouazzi
Lazhar Bouazzi Aug 2018
A green pond
In a leafless park
Held with an iron bond
His stagnant equilibrium.

©LazharBouazzi, 5 August, 2018
Jul 2018 · 17.3k
The Window
Lazhar Bouazzi Jul 2018
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
Jul 2018 · 3.1k
Writing
Lazhar Bouazzi Jul 2018
Writing is
the frozen music
of an ellipsis -
a silent song
of a lonesome poet
who sings in the dark
between howling winds
crossing swords
in the white shades
of unseen things -

a winter on the pole
on whose  obverse side
there's Rio,
and mirth,
and dancing,
and the sun's critique
of hegemony.

© LazharBouazzi
Jul 2018 · 6.9k
The Seagull
Lazhar Bouazzi Jul 2018
Across the leaden sky
A gull shooting a cry
Hurried to his task
Before the sky puts on his mask.

Nobody knew what his task was
Except that his time drew to a pause
And that he had to hurry because
From the open he had to retreat.

The bird knew this but he was wayward
Swimming in the airy wave, beak forward -
Skating, flying, but always eastward -
Heedless of the dark, like a poet.

(c) LazharBouazzi
Jul 2018 · 5.8k
Night in Carthage
Lazhar Bouazzi Jul 2018
In the yellow,
cold light
of the wine-dark
night,
'tween the brand-new mall
and the Roman Site,
he staggered
alone,
drunken
with "Magon"*
and memories.

Vast,
so vast is the night -
vast
as the memory
of an English
prairie,
and an emmer-haired
maiden
he'd walked
to the ferry
on a summery day.

Vast,
so vast
is a night
masquerading
as a want of sight.


© LazharBouazzi
"Magon" is a popular Tunisian wine named after the famous Tunisian (Carthaginian) author of the "Treatises on Agronomy, Winegrowing and Winemaking (eighth century BC. ) " when Tunisia was Europe's wine cellar.
Jul 2018 · 10.8k
The Swim
Lazhar Bouazzi Jul 2018
Azure was the sky, and leaden was the sea;
Not surprising would the discord be
For him who has read Wordsworth.

What ailed his thoughts were the debris
Of broken glass fishermen-in-boats
Might have thrown into the ocean
On a night of 'Celtia'* with no pairing,

Or the sight of a woman’s dress
Whose swollen darkness was
A sea urchin, whose quills
Were plucked by the greenness of rust;

Or a German parachute
Over Kasserine pass**, my thyme nest
And the center of Tunisia.

©LazharBouazzi, July 15, 2018
*'Celtia' is the oldest and most popular tunisian beer
**The Battle of Kasserine Pass was a battle of the Tunisia Campaign of World War II that took place in February 1943. Kasserine Pass is a 2-mile-wide (3.2 km) gap in the Grand Dorsal chain of the Atlas Mountains in west central Tunisia. The Axis forces, led by Generalfeldmarschall Erwin Rommel, were primarily from the Afrika Korps Assault Group, elements of the Italian Centauro Armoured Division and two Panzer divisions detached from the 5th Panzer Army, while the Allied forces consisted of the U.S. II Corps (Major General Lloyd Fredendall),[5] the British 6th Armoured Division (Major-General Charles Keightley) and other parts of the First Army (Lieutenant-General Kenneth Anderson).
The battle was the first major engagement between American and Axis forces in World War II in Africa. Inexperienced and poorly led American troops suffered many casualties and were quickly pushed back over 50 miles (80 km) from their positions west of Faïd Pass.[5] After the early defeat, elements of the U.S. II Corps, with British reinforcements, rallied and held the exits through mountain passes in western Tunisia, defeating the Axis offensive. As a result of the battle, the U.S. Army instituted sweeping changes of unit organization and replaced commanders[5] and some types of equipment.” (Wikipedia)
Ironically (or, correspondingly), West central Tunisia (notably Kasserine mountains) are now being used by what is left of Islamist terrorists, whose colors are green and black, as their headquarters in their battle against democracy. (my note)
Jul 2018 · 824
Tunisian Haiku
Lazhar Bouazzi Jul 2018
Eyeglasses old on wetland,
Footmarks deep in fissured sand,
Tidegreen takes all.
(c) LazharBouazzi
Lazhar Bouazzi Jul 2018
What ails thee, pilgrim of the mall,
Silent, earthen grief of the fall,
Pushing beneath her branded mask
A chariot to manage her task?

A writ of habeas corpus on paper:
'"Garden rocket," "lamp," and "mirror"'
For your inward eye and the terror
Of the still blast of oldhood and time
That left you with no place but rhyme -
And the mall.
What ails thee, woman of language
And the fall?

© LazharBouazzi
Jul 2018 · 5.5k
Pilgrim of the Mall
Lazhar Bouazzi Jul 2018
What ails thee, pilgrim of the mall,
Silent grief of the fall,
Pushing beneath her branded mask
A chariot to manage her task?

A writ of habeas corpus on paper:
"'Garden rocket,' 'lamp,' and 'mirror,'
For your inward eye and the terror
Of the still blast of oldhood and time
That left you with no place but rhyme -
And the mall."

What ails thee, woman of language
And the fall?

© LazharBouazzi, 3 July, 2018
Jul 2018 · 425
Lament of the Lemon Tree
Lazhar Bouazzi Jul 2018
The citrus tree grows grey with fear
As the fierce wind she could overhear
Reminds her of a fact yet so clear:
That the badlands are not where she belongs.
© LazharBouazzi
Jun 2018 · 500
Untold Stories
Lazhar Bouazzi Jun 2018
An oblique path cutting in two a blue hill,  
bathed in a cobalt ocean of morning glories.
On the blue hill there were also a red mill,
Crickets, ants, bees, and many-hued damselflies.

A haven was the fresh upside-down coquille
For long stories untold and movements still
Of difference and dragonflies, of fluttering
Over a bluesky ground of mute uttering.

On a dry log pitched not too far from the mill,
Rose an artless sign in the hushed sound of the hill;
Each of whose letters was written in blueberry -
Surely placed there by a traveler in a hurry:
“No matter how often a road is traveled by,
It never tells twice the selfsame story.”

(c) LazharBouazzi
Jun 2018 · 1.6k
Dernier Souhait
Lazhar Bouazzi Jun 2018
When I die – if I ever do -
Bury me in a garden, if you
Have guts;
Or in a vineyard, with a trellis,
For I will not drink from torrents
And mythic Greek rivers.
© LazharBouazzi, 24 June, 2018
Jun 2018 · 2.3k
The Sky Near my House
Lazhar Bouazzi Jun 2018
On the canvas of the Sky,
As high as can see the eye,
Two figures hung: a cowbell
And a sailing boat as well.

On the canvas of the Sky,
As far as would reach the eye,
Bell on bell, boat on boat, high
They linger for a moment,

Then they all wave good-bye,
Like a choir of echoes.

(C) LazharBouazzi
Jun 2018 · 310
Words & Rains
Lazhar Bouazzi Jun 2018
"My words
For a rain !"
Cried the poet.

But remiss
Was the rain,

For she dreaded
A kiss

From Judas -
With the tongue.

© LazharBouazzi, 19 June, 2018
Jun 2018 · 1.7k
Moon (Night 3)
Lazhar Bouazzi Jun 2018
The moon rose up
Late
Tonight.

Her face
A replica
Of Africa.

(C)LazharBouazzi, Tunisia
Jun 2018 · 8.0k
The Rocks
Lazhar Bouazzi Jun 2018
A mock pack of sea dogs
Lay on the hot, white shore;
Their wrinkles said
They'd been too long
In the sea.
Next to them dozed a tyrian crab
Whose sleep in a foot-trace deep
Commenced to crumble
In the green rumble
Of a lecherous tide.

Then a dark, awkward sound  
(Not too far from the drowsing crab)
Was heard.
He came forth from the mountain
To sun himself on the shore
And send the frightened rocks  
Back to the deep.

(c) LazharBouazzi, 11 June, 2018
Jun 2018 · 2.8k
Requiem for the Wind
Lazhar Bouazzi Jun 2018
******* is imagination
And the words
Crack the asphalt of the port
Like poppies. For the wind is gone.

And the sea must now sing alone
To the sunken city -
Underneath.
(C) LazharBouazzi, 4 June, 2018
Jun 2018 · 421
Postcard
Lazhar Bouazzi Jun 2018
Look at the dormant summer noon
Drowsing by the pregnant tree
And lulled to his vision of the moon
By a wandering honey bee

(Whose scarlet thirst she can’t quench
For the translucent nectar).

Her songs are so sweet and subdued
As a score of fruits waiting  in
A cluster
Not knowing when they will be plucked
So they hung on a sleeper’s specter.

© LazharBouazzi, 1 June, 2018
May 2018 · 26.1k
Shopping in the Rain
Lazhar Bouazzi May 2018
The rain ticks on the curb
Like a chronometer
Held up to a short race

As a man entering the mall
Feels his pocket for his
Wallet,
A grimace cracks his face.

© LazharBouazzi
May 2018 · 1.4k
Jouissance
Lazhar Bouazzi May 2018
You are the eye
Under whose lids
I bask without
having to ask
“Why should I die?”

And your thighs, ah!
When my eyes
Conjure up your thighs
I become certain
Of one thing:
That the dead will rise again.
LazharBouazzi, May 13, 2018
May 2018 · 450
Moon Four (revised)
Lazhar Bouazzi May 2018
Late
Woke up the moon
Tonight.

Swollen her face -
Like a replica
Of Africa.

LazharBouazzi
May 2018 · 1.6k
The Revolt of the Moon
Lazhar Bouazzi May 2018
The moon says the final word tonight -
Casual-recherché and light.

She, in the absence of the sun,
Leafs through the pages of the night

And shoots a side-look at the pond,
As her desire stretches far
Beyond his specular contour.

(c) LazharBouazzi
Apr 2018 · 541
Pond in the Park
Lazhar Bouazzi Apr 2018
A green, ungiving pond
In an exhausted park
Held with an iron bond
His stagnant equilibrium.

©LazharBouazzi, 30 March, 2018
Apr 2018 · 933
Carnality
Lazhar Bouazzi Apr 2018
'Twixt the sandy dunes of words
And the shimmering darkness
Of ink
I riot with my forked tongue
As a snake would do among
The unlettered stones of a
Sunny graveyard.

© LazharBouazzi
Apr 2018 · 5.0k
Winds on the Rocks
Lazhar Bouazzi Apr 2018
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
Mar 2018 · 3.7k
The Tortoise
Lazhar Bouazzi Mar 2018
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 night, a candlelight.

He is his own version
of the light and the rite
and the fight sisyphean.

© LazharBouazzi
Lazhar Bouazzi Mar 2018
To the Goddess of morn
who made bread from fire
and taught me how to read
to read the wreaths of coffee
into the songs of dawn.

And to the Mason who
showed me how to hammer,
form out of chaos
and cherish the scent of
the cement on grey-green walls.

© LazharBouazzi
Mar 2018 · 375
Rioting (revised)
Lazhar Bouazzi Mar 2018
'tween the sandy dunes of words
And the sparkling dark foams of ink
I riot as a snake would do
With his forked tongue
Among the
Unlettered stones of a sunny
Graveyard.

© LazharBouazzi, rev. 3/3/2018
Jan 2018 · 918
Celebration
Lazhar Bouazzi Jan 2018
What is it that he celebrates today,
The oncoming of the frost or the passing of time?

Beneath his feet the water
Scintillates with a flame liquid -
Silver -
A transmutation of fire
Fuelled by the tears of his mother,
In whose waves he sailed to Sicily.

Bayreuth, Germany, looked like a frozen Sahara
With the local colors, and a pale-blue train
He had taken in Rome, at the "Stazione Termini.”

She: her body was carved in Napoli
He: his hair was planted in Carthage,
But both sought another knowledge
In Tübingen or perhaps in Konstanz.

She said, “I would sail from here to there,
Like you did from where you were,

But I would lose the rattle of your absence,
And that would be what makes all the difference”!
© LazharBouazzi, January 27, 2018
Jan 2018 · 1.4k
Forward Recollection
Lazhar Bouazzi Jan 2018
On a golden bedding
Spread for you by June -
Silken, fresh tedding
Beneath a sluggish noon .
Ah! Your fragrant silhouette
In a blink of my eye!

But we are in the winter
Now,
The time to surrender
To the stories that unfold
Of the children and the old
Adding cold to cold
Around a hearth of clay

As I look through the window pane
I glimpse a scarlet tourist train
Across the scintillating snow
Coloring the leaden no-show
That shut him out from the rainbow.

Oh! Your fragrant silhouette
On a summer wheat show!


© LazharBouazzi, January 21, 2018
Dec 2017 · 1.7k
Incongruity
Lazhar Bouazzi Dec 2017
The yellow rays of the sun fell on the Bower
Like a golden rain
And a bee kissed with the tongue a crimson flower
Like a song refrain
As a silky butterfly sweet as a shower
Poked fun at my pain.
© LazharBouazzi, December 29, 2017
Dec 2017 · 1.0k
The Balance
Lazhar Bouazzi Dec 2017
Let me offer you a blue and scarlet balance
To wish you on these jocund days of Christmas
What mortals tire not of wishing to themselves:
A fragrant, eternal equilibrium.
© LazharBouazzi (December 19, 2017)
(My Christmas Present For all my HP friends)
Dec 2017 · 5.6k
Evensong to the Rain
Lazhar Bouazzi Dec 2017
Make this want wither,
O Rain!

Dig a brook hither
In my vein,

And plant on either side
Of my pain -

Swaying thousands
Of bluebells.
LazharBouazzi (December 15, 2017)
Dec 2017 · 1.3k
The Rocks
Lazhar Bouazzi Dec 2017
Half-buried in the sand, lay some rocks in the sun ,
Whom nature had mocked in the shape of sea dogs;
Their wrinkled coats say they’d been too long in the sea.

Next to them, as sunrays kissed a dormant crab,
Traces of some bare feet started to crumble
Under the silent, liquid weight of a tide within.

Now let the amphibious Historians rejoice
In interpretation thereof a dark green hog
Comes forth from the mountain to the shore - to sun
Himself and send the frightened rocks back to the ocean.

(c) LazharBouazzi (December 7, 2017)
Dec 2017 · 977
The Dream
Lazhar Bouazzi Dec 2017
He dreamed of the silver rays of rain
Kissing the pallid thirst of the desert

He dreamed of a hectic, blue wind
Fluttering - with no sails on orange boats

He dreamed of the stars shining alone
Out of the somber dome of night

He dreamed of his imagination
Re-inventing a color to the sea

©LazharBouazzi (December 2, 2017)
Nov 2017 · 743
The Bard & the Words
Lazhar Bouazzi Nov 2017
With one ear he harks to the drums
Of the tribal measure when it comes,
Then he feels he must talk in tongues
So he yields his nakedness to the words.

Only words when summoned
Ask for nothing in return
For a fire they beckoned
To kindle a withered burn
And brighten the dark dome again
In the midnight hour.

With one ear he harks to the drums
Of the tribal measure as it comes,
Then he knows he should speak through some tongues
So he offers his nakedness to the words
Willingly in the midnight hour.

© LazharBouazzi
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