Your golden dunes
I miss.
But please don’t take it
amiss
If today
I ask you to turn
On the other side
So that I can see
Your hot, burning
Soul I crave
to kiss -
With my fountain pen.
© LazharBouazzi

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

When he’s alone in the night,
In the absence of the light
And the presence of the sight,
There, begins the tearing blight:
Dark veiling dark, light veiling light.

(What am I doing?
Poetry-dwelling
In these dunes of salt
With five syllables?)

When he's alone in the night
In the half-presence of the light
There, begins the specular fight –
The scarlet mutiny within.

© LazharBouazzi, December 12, 2016

Swarming in the incense, this part  of “The City”
looked like a Turkish bath, and the books, old & cold,
shivered in trays as they awaited their faux leather,
While a wet winter wind whistled in the keyholes.

By the fallen, balmy cloud the fruits of cactus
lay in a red cart like porcupines colored, tired
of being on guard all the time. Their hues stirred
the hunger of the centenary walls, so their fissures
oozed and their latter-day hieroglyphs began
to crumble.
(c) LazharBouazzi

Eyeglasses old on wetland,
Footmarks deep in fissured sand,
Tidegreen takes all.
(c) LazharBouazzi

I waited for my son
In the airport today.
It was fun.
It was fun crafting
A poem on the run
As I checked faces and
Metaphors - one by one,
Asking them all: “Is a
Poem a loved one -
Like a son -
Or is it just a pun
'On that which is done'*?”

©LazharBouazzi, Carthage, TUN, March 19, 2017

My hungry lips started to talk
To her lips in language hungry,
And my tongue began to unlock
The well of  her language sundry
Necking her North African mounds;
Halting at her salving shell pink
To sip and sup her winy words,
And faint and wake and rise and sink
In the waking sleep of the tongues
Of her fire
To pen my un–Sufi desire
To die in the dunes of her body.

© LazharBouazzi, October 20,  2016

"Has an Ur-
Tablet
Ever been
Whispered
To a poet -
(Un) like an ancient
Prophet?",

Sang a rubicund
Parrot
Hanging in an apple
Tree.

LazharBouazzi, February 25, 2017

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

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

After so long a journey
The traveler needed rest
So he picked one of two trees -
That was in his eye the best.

Getting off his “Clio”*
He stepped on a flower
Whose color had braved alone
The asphalt of the highway.

From his car he moved away
And faced a trench gaping gray
Which he was unable to cross
To where the water-spring was.

He yelled into the ditch
Trying to get an answer
Only his echo returned
For want of a transfer

Then a scarlet sand rose,
pulled by the small man’s toes,
Jumped right under his nose
Into the chasm with no bottom.

Back to the tree he returned
But the whole site was now ferned -
Rhizomes wherever he turned:
Underground, too, were now the
badlands.

(c) Lazhar Bouazzi, April, 2016

In the sandy dunes of words
And the sparkling foams of light
He riots as a snake would do
With his forked tongue - 'tween the Unlet-
Tered stones of a sunny graveyard.

© LazharBouazzi  (14 October, 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

No brazen sign
On his smartphone,
No token of friendliness!
What portable solitude,
What mobile loneliness!

© LazharBouazzi, Carthage, May 20, 2016

How did the Greek Pundit mark
The middle of a storyline
If time, space, and self are handmade,
If language is borderline,
If a lover knows not what love is,
And if a poem’s writer is its first line?

© LazharBouazzi, June 3, 2016

I crossed life
On camelback,
Halting punctually
By the track
To sleep, forget,
And feed
On what was placed
On my steed:
Sun-dried language
For me
And the fruit,
For those
I crossed
On my route.

(c) LazharBouazzi

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

Thank you for
Showing up
In my dream
Last night.

But, next time
Try not to wear
This garment white;

It made you look
So equivocal.

© LazharBouazzi

The moon rose up late
Tonight; her face was
Swollen, like a map
Of Africa.
LazharBouazzi, August 8, 2017

“Rain for my words!”
Cried the poet.
But the rain would
Not acquiesce.
For she dreaded
Lnguage Judaskiss.

(c) LazharBouazzi, May 14, 2016; revised, August 2, 2016

I
The tongues of hell
Swallowed the leaves
The trees had uttered
To summon the rain.
II
(“I will not weep,”
Said the poet
To himself,
“I will repeat.”).
© LazharBouazzi, Carthage, TUNISIA, August 3, 2017

A crimson boat waives
The flow of the waves
As a blonde damsel craves
An infernal sun.

Next to the maid and the dandy-fella -
Blossoms a vermillion umbrella
Whose washed out shadow - a pallid cellar
For two green apples and one apricot
The blonde damsel on the way had bought
To quench her want of the lustful monster.

Closing her ice-blue eyes, the fair woman,
Her sinful inspiration did summon
To come carve on her navel so sullen
A blue picture of the new Benzart bridge.

© LazharBouazzi, Carthage, June 5, 2016


*"Benzart" is the Tunisian name for “Biserta” or “Bizerte”  - a beach town on the northern coast of Tunisia.

A new Tunisian poetic genre is born.
What is a "Kasserine"?
Structure:
A Kasserine is a new poetic genre created on July 9, 2017. In it all is condensed in two lines with a sum total of thirteen or fourteen syllables. Its first line cannot exceed seven of them.
The title of a Kasserine must be an integral part of the poem in terms of interpretation. The number of its syllables must not exceed seven.
Subject matter:
In a Kasserine nature and imagination perform the same poetic activity. Nature ceases to be a mere mirror reflecting the feelings of the poet, the political or social situation, etc., and becomes symbolic in the very moment it renounces representation as a one-to-one correspondence . Nature in a Kasserine has no existence prior to the pricking into action of the imagination by the self of the poet. For, even though it is groundless (it does not belong to the self), the imagination has no intentionality of its own; this is why it needs the intentionality of the subject in order to be operative.
Samples of a Kasserine

Ruby Sun
Among amethyst silk clouds
She flirts with the sapphire sea
(c) Paula Swenson, USA

Tunisia
A fair island of light
in my imagination
(c) Jeffard Ster, USA

Red Giant
A star inside her implodes
Heavens of chaos unfold
(c) Stefan David Sederscog, Sweden

Voyeurism
The sea kisses the sky
Imagination beholds.
© LazharBouazzi, Tunisia



Note: Friends and acquaintances are cordially invited to start writing sublime (marked by repression of meaning) Kasserines.
(c)Lazhar Bouazzi, 9 July, 2017.

A green, ungiving pond
In an exhausted park
Held with an iron bond
His stagnant equilibrium.

©LazharBouazzi, 30 March, 2018

O crimson, fresh sapling
O bronze Hell&Heaven;'s gate
You impress on a poet’s fate
Your wanton, insatiable burning.

© Lazhar Bouazzi, April, 2016

In Salammbô
The sun
Looked like a bowl
Of honey, today.
And the sea
Felt like a womb.
LazharBouazzi, Carthage, July 22, 2017

The citrus trees grow grey with fear
As the fierce wind they could overhear
Reminds them of a fact so clear:
That the badlands are not where they belong.
© LazharBouazzi, September 23, 2016

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

I love you
so much
despite  
the
countless
sediments
of  knowledge
that were
bestowed
on us
by the victims
of their own
ignorance,
whom I
rarely curse
but oftentimes
weep.

© Lazhar Bouazzi, Carthage, April 13, 2016

Speech
can become
touch,
depending on
intonation.

Writing
can become
dance,
depending on
the typewriter.

(c) LazharBouazzi

As I look back into my life
I think to myself:
"I sped when I was a boy. I sped
To out-distance time."

And when I look at the dark-green rocks
In my neighborhood, by the azure docks,
I say to the rocks :
"I go. You stay. You stay for the winds
To breathe upon thee."
(c) LazharBouazzi, November 10th, 2017

I don’t run to poetry
To save my skin;
Quite on the contrary.

I conjure the humming bee
On the blue rosemary tree,
I followed as a carefree
Boy in the backyard,
Only 'cause I’m scared
Of the scarred face
Of metaphor.
© LazharBouazzi, January 24, 2017

My doctor,
who happens to be my own wife,
said I needed a rest from mental activity.
I will comply with her
orders, but I can still read your
Wonderful poems. I hope I will be able
To resume writing soon.
Lazhar.

Late
Woke up the moon
Tonight.

Swollen her face -
Like a replica
Of Africa.

LazharBouazzi

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

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

I
On the canvas of the sky
Tow figures had been executed:
A rugged boat coming to a halt,
By several dunes of salt
(A verse looming
In the folds of haste
And the sameness of waste).
II
Like the seeds of pine
Tearing a tree line,
Dried, black grains of rain
Riddled our “Peugeot"
Sailing like a flow
Of camels - on the asphalt.
III
In “Peugeots" and grace an expert,
Not in camels & the desert
Where the night no dune can avert,
For it falls at once like a curtain.
© LazharBouazzi, Carthage, TUNISIA, July 30, 2017

'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

The tongues of fire*
Swollowed the leaves
The trees had uttered
To summon the rain.
(c) LazharBouazzi

The good thing about a tortoise
Is that he carries time on his
shoulders
and does not have to hide
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,
and cast a novel 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 candle, a night.
He is his
own version
of the light,
of the rite,
and the fight
Sisyphean.

© LazharBouazzi

"I have no quest,
Says the poet,
"I have a struggle."
(c) LazharBouazzi, November 18, 2017

"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

I
To the Prophet-ess
who turned fire
into bread,
And taught me
The wreaths of coffee
To read
Into the songs of dawn.
II
And the mason
Who showed me how
To hammer
Form out of chaos,
And love the scent
Of the cement
On new walls.

© LazharBouazzi, August 13, 2017

Thank you
For showing up
In my dream
Last night.

But
Try not to wear
This garment white
Next time.

It made you look
Equivocal.

© LazharBouazzi

“How do I look today, mirror?”
Asked the dandy, sportively.
“How do I know, little fella?”
Answered the mirror, teasingly,
“One chooses only a first color,”
Added the mirror, now seriously,
“And choosing a first color
Is not the business of a mirror.”
(c) LazharBouazzi

Is the
Act of giving shape
To chaos -
An affair of alchemy,
Like turning sweat
Into drops of
Silver.
(c) LazharBouazzi

A green pond
In an old park
Clasped his
Stagnant
Equilibrium
Like a mother.

LazharBouazzi