Overcome by this inverted lightning, i storm
into an abbreviated tomorrow, where i flood
into the dreamscape of today, eyes raining

down and inward. i sleep forth into the world
of waking, overcome by the temperament
of this mummified mouth. clawing the dragon
now hungry for my golden intimate currency

our love hides at the ends of my fingertips.
Fire nibbles the soles of my feet through
to my own heart, crumbling me clouded

where i go blind. i am sorry, marooned
on this island, where the corals reach down
from the sky. where stalactites rip the sails
of all incoming boats, the dragon survives

in an ephemeral artery, or in some capillary
where his teeth reign over whatever empire

smothering into, he becomes my face

to she that saves me. i have learned to love,
in that love has shown me it is beyond me;

where
the dragon follows my fingertips to your hair,
you walk beside me. where i am given i,
but awakened, beneath a golden sky

the dragon suckles everywhere

that i am saved. by the weapon of giving,

we carry an honest love
between our outspread palms

richer in treasure is
the continental freedom of having
washed ashore together.

i.

drunken in my pockets,
the day whispers to the trees that
pin to you, albatross
of a wind-swept sea loosening
feathers and heart-beats in
short, death-caught seconds.

ii.

gorgeous girl of height,
your caves are bright mysteries
your light an elephant's graveyard
of grey.

iii.

bitter note of earth,
you anchor birth
to our eye sockets, unwrap
mint and honey from the hills.

iv.

uneasy mistress,
dark daughter of sight,
sunk into all the corners of the world
you break like string,
you break and i break with you.



v.

vignette of ivy-coloured dreams,
sunny trail, you break my heart and
glue it back, sigh and sigh like a viking raider
conjured out of porcelain
and rose-water.

vi.

warrior of distant planes,
dense harbour of a lonely city,
landscape of water, unravelled
in an instant, a velvet
ribbon tied into a bow.

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)

thirty years
since Mark gunned you down
thirty years, passed
like a long sleepless night
that ends with taunting morning light
no brilliant sunrise grandly pronouncing
a glorious new dawn of man
although that would have been your plan
with your entreaties to give peace a chance
and imagine, imagine, imagine

now I kneel in this rain gray park
like a reject from some holy ark
a pilgrim in doleful disappointed pose
after seeing what your earthly brothers chose
was not to imagine a world of peace and love
but to wear reality like a cast iron glove
making mockery of your martyred chants
proceeding like a billion scurrying ants
deaf to your childlike pleas

across the soaked soil where your ashes lay
yesterday and today…and tomorrow
I feel the soggy sorrow
that you would have felt
if you could still see
all the rage of humanity

(written 7 years ago on the 30th anniversary of the ****** of John Lennon)

the old woman stopped crying

though she knew the tears would return
like the prairie winds, without warning,
from some place she could not see    

soon they would come for him,
place him on the gurney
cover him in white shroud
wheel him through the door:

a horizontal journey,
like the vertical one he had made myriad times before,
on two strong legs, to and fro the pastures and pens
where he did sweat honest work  

she leaned over to kiss him a last time
in evening's fading light

she had honored his final request and turned him
so he could face the open window--his old eyes then toward the red barn, the gray fences, the ground his livestock grazed  

past all this, to the flatland that seemed to go on forever