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

Late
Woke up the moon
Tonight.

Swollen her face -
Like a replica
Of Africa.

LazharBouazzi

The moon rose up
Late
Tonight.

Her face
A replica
Of Africa.

(C)LazharBouazzi, Tunisia

"Stung
like a bumblebee,
Danced
like a butterfly."
Once or twice
he was on his knee,
But never lost
the “tiger’s eye.”

Au revoir,
inerrant Punch Press!
Yes,
adiós,
Black Orpheus!
Adiós,  
adiós!

© LazharBouazzi, Carthage, TUN, June 6, 2016

i
What is it exactly that we celebrate today?
An oncoming rain or the passage of Time?
ii
Under his feet, the water in the sea
Burned with a cold, liquid flame,
Cold & silver - a transmutation of fire
Fuelled by his mother's tear
In which he sailed to Sicily.
iii
Bayreuth looked like a frozen Sahara,
With the local colors, and a pale-blue train
He had taken in Rome, at the "Stazioni Termini."
vi
What is it exactly that he should celebrate today?
The Passing of August, or the Advent of the Frost
In the Season of Eternity?

© LazharBouazzi, August 30, 2017

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

In the yellow,
cold light
of the wine-dark
night _
between the 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 had walked
to the ferry
on a summery day.

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


© LazharBouazzi

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

The lane is light-less tonight;
But I’m not unduly perturbed,
For there is still enough sight
In my fancy not to be curbed
By a solitary lamp
Who was forced into silence.

© LazharBouazzi, October 16, 2016

As the shape all sun
tore up the curtain
of blood and ululation,
everything in Tunisia,
as stricken by a wand,
came to a standstill,
and slipped away
from the senses -
Even rivers stopped.

Medjerda* froze
halfway
through the descent
to his destination,
as he realized
he’d been making a fatal error:
pouring forth all his passion
into the ocean.

So he stopped,
retracted his course,
re-collected himself,
and started flowing backward,
toward
the source
in the Atlas
that had bidden him
farewell.

In his spear head
there was a design:
start a new chaos
in the valley,
in which there would be
a sweet-water lake
and sailors drunk
with sunbeams, sweat
and pleasure.
Butterflies would flutter
around the scent of mint
and bluegreen rosemary.
Sweet Moon to Sweet Lake
would come, unannounced,
In the rays of the nightlight
of the fluttering night
to watch her self
shoot
the scene
of representation.

The river, now swimming
in his own water,  
carried the sky on his shoulder,
while an ant and a grasshopper,
holding a basket together,
watched the new scene.

As the figure all sun appeared ,
reason melted;
imagination
her hazel eyes opened.

*Medjerda is the most important river in Tunisia. Length, 460 km; basin area, 22,000 sq km. It flows out of the Atlas mountains into the Gulf of Tunis.
© LazharBouazzi, June 16, 2016

As the shape-all-sun
tore up the curtain
of blood and ululation,
everything in Tunisia,
as stricken by a wand,
came to a standstill,
and slipped away
from the senses -
Even rivers stopped.

Medjerda* froze
halfway
through his descent
to his destination,
as he realized
he’d been making a fatal error:
pouring forth all his passion
into the ocean.

So he stopped,
retracted his course,
re-collected himself,
and started flowing backward,
toward
the source
in the Atlas
that had bidden him
farewell.

In his spear head
there was a design:
start a new chaos
in the valley,
in which there would be
a sweet-water lake
and sailors drunk
with sunbeams, sweat
and pleasure.
Butterflies would flutter
around the scent of mint
and bluegreen rosemary.
Through the flutter
of the midnight hour
Sweet Moon to Sweet Lake
would come, unannounced,
to watch her self shooting
the act of representation.

Now swimming
in his own water,
th river
carried the sky on his shoulder,
while an ant and a grasshopper,
holding a basket together,
watched the new scene.

As the figure-all-sun appeared ,
reason melted;
imagination
her hazel eyes opened.

© LazharBouazzi

*Medjerda is the most important river in Tunisia. Length, 460 km; basin area, 22,000 sq km. It flows out of the Atlas mountains into the Gulf of Tunis.

"Arab Chickens"* are like
Imaginations:
Indefatigable measurers
Of length and breadth
Where color, choice,
And depth
Are manifestations of the surface.

©LazharBouazzi, Carthage, March1, 2017. Re-revised, March 3, 2017

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

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

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

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

A green pond
In a leafless park
Held with an iron bond
His stagnant equilibrium.

©LazharBouazzi, 5 August, 2018

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

©LazharBouazzi, 30 March, 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

The silver music
That kisses my sight
And memory.

(c)LBouazzi, 25 November, 2O18

I
He was intoxicated
by the scent of the coffee
dancing in the morning
to his mother’s humming.
II
Then a blacksmith - his father -
taught him how to hammer
form out of chaos
in the muddle of force
and a sweaty anvil.
III
Now if he wished to see
the sunness of Sun
and the greenness of Tree
he would summon the specter
of an Arab maiden - Fatma -
who was once Berber
to come write on his face
with her soothing finger:
“Salam, my anguished lover.”
IV
When green-eyed Fatma comes
the wreaths of coffee
Would come with her
writing in the air;
and all the songs of history
would come marching too,
in battle array,
like an army dressed
in civilian clothes
for a dance in Rio.
V
Fatma’s hair –
a still cascade
of thin goldeness,
a tide of watery fire,
a flight motionless  
of a million birds who
speak in tongues
and laugh
to the stone unlettered
of his fidgety cenotaph .

© LazharBouazzi, Carthage, TUN, August 27, 2016

I
He was intoxicated
by the scent of coffee
dancing in the morning
to his mother’s humming.
II
Then a blacksmith - his father -
taught him how to hammer
form out of chaos
in the muddle of force
and a sweaty anvil.
III
Now if he wished to see
the sunness of the sun
and the greenness of the tree
he would summon the image
of Fatma - an Arab maiden
who was once Berber,
to come write on his face
with her soothing finger:
“Salam, my anguished lover.”
IV
When green-eyed Fatma comes
the wreaths of coffee
Would come with her,
writing in the air;
and all the songs of history
would come marching too,
in battle array,
like an army dressed
in civilian clothing
for a dance in Rio.
V
Fatma’s hair –
a still cascade
of light goldness,
a tide of watery fire,
a flight motionless
of a millon birds who
sing in tongues
and laugh
to the stone unlettered
of his fidgety cenotaph.

© LazharBouazzi, Carthage, TUN

******* 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

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)

'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

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

Is only a name.
But naming is
Like timing,
Spacing,
Teasing
Loving -
A carving
In chaos.

© LazharBouazzi, February 14, 2017

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

The sun loomed young through the ribs of the Punic Port
Bringing back his turquoise splendor to the Med-Sea;
And Seagull, who in his morning flight did escort
The golden loaf of bread fishermen longed to see,
Soared higher and higher over the glazing port,
Preparing for the long voyage when the time be.

Expectant and white was the Carthaginian knight,
Oblivious of the blue peril; no long flight
Would scare him, no azure thirst would he have to fight.
Only the phantasm of an alien skylark,
who would despoil the timer of the golden sun &
peck out her "off" button  with his accent mark -
Would make him soar & sing in his vision of bravery.

(c)LazharBouazzi

A torrid rumbling in my head
Chants for the making of a poem,
But no words in my head respond
To the hungry, chanting plea.

A brass rim hugs an acre of
A zinc ocean, no fish no birds,
Save an empty body, no soul no words,
Fluttering on a broken sea.

And lifting from time to time,
From wave to wave, a valedictory
Pallid hand in lieu of a grimace.


©LazharBouazzi (August 11, 2017)

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

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

(c) LazharBouazzi

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

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

No matter how often a road is traveled by,
It never tells the same story twice.
(c) 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 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

Poets, like
madmen and prophets,
are banned from
the Kingdom of Reason,
as they are
the progeny of the sun
(the sun who illumines as he blinds)
and the siblings
of the rays
who never tire
of beating
the world into
magnificent new shapes
that fascinate us
all – including
Unwavering Moon whose
lonesome secret is to be
madly in love
with the rainbow.

© LazharBouazzi, May 26, 216

When the ant had told
that December cold
night the grasshopper,
who had spent Summer
singing in the tree,
to go dance now that
he was hungry but free,
he didn’t show the hurt,
for he was alert
To the discomfort
of Winter and language;
but he left the village.

When he, years later,
Came back as a baker
(who sang in the day
and worked in the night),
the first thing he did
was to go see the ant -
a gift-wrapped guitar
in his hand.

(c) LazharBouazzi

I
When the ant had told,
That December cold
Night, the grasshopper,
Who had spent his summer
Singing in the tree,
To go dance now that
He was hungry & free,
He didn’t show the hurt,
Because he was alert
To the pain
Of winter and language,
So he left the village.
II
When he, thirteen years
Later,
Came back as a baker
(Who worked in the day
And sang in the night)
He went to see the ant,
A blue guitar gift-wrapped -
In his hand.
© LazharBouazzi, TUNISIA

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

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

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)

I am the quill that marks
The water-walled history
Of the sea as it may -
A swan, be it, or a black-backed
Gull.

I am the pariah who
Failed to posit his load on
A hill that hung low, like a
Sunless moon, but who can still
hark the dark
Rumbling of repetition.

I am the Quixote who took
On the wind who made the mill
Sob like a bronze leaf in grief,
Seared by the passage of
A sluggish summer.

I am the pariah, the
Quixote, and the historian
Of the rainbow runner.

©LazharBouazzi, August 5, 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

A beggar I once met
At the port of La Goulette
Greeted me with a nod
But he spoke to me not.

A beggar I once met
At the port of La Goulette
Made me wonder all night:
What's a beggar who beggs not?
c) LazharBouazzi
*La Goulette is a seaport town in the northern suburbs of Tunis.

Through the moiré windowpane -
By my leaden writing desk -
I saw a host of dark clouds
Hastening to their somber task
Like a herd of frightened sheep
Shrouded ‘neath the callous mask
Of the night - on the way home.

Through the moiré window pane
A question stood in my way again:
What is a cloud that leaves shut
The flask* of an announced rain?

© LazharBouazzi, 30/12/2016

“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