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

she smears her lips
with mama's red crayons.

(then
she swallows them whole)

lips like sour cherries,
puckered ,
                  swollen .

wiping her eyes on soft
tissue,
blood stains instead.

It was fine but I think I hate my job
And I won't spend anytime here
With you
I'm going to the other room
There's laughs and things
I would rather do
You just sit there
Wallowing in ****
In the pages of that book
Or with your headphones stuffed in
Deafening you to the world
You say you hate so much.

I can't take it anymore
Go be worthless somewhere else

"Darling you don't even know the worthlessness I consistently feel in your eyes, in that bed. I didn't see myself destroying me."

all i can think is
i wish i was the wild one
wild sister of the street
wild mother of the hungry sky
something poetic
like wild girl, roaming
more than just a wisp born
of country air
wild wind, ******* forward
through the field
across a country deep and cracked
until i reach the skyline
scrapers extending beyond the reach
of any mountain, and the stars rest
above the smog of the home
where the wild ones rest
where the wild ones lie awake
and i can camouflage myself
in the darks and reds and glittery bedspreads
and be wild
in a different way
paint me wild, paint me
green and blue with envy
paint my cheeks white, paint over the pink
of stale summer air
all i can think is
i wish i was the wild one
break away, go some place
where i can tell my story a million different ways
and they might believe me
make me wild in another way
no more ***** shoes or burdock-ridden hair
give me sharp heels, black combat
sleek and shiny, change me
make me wild
and i sink to my knees
sink into the soft, welcoming concrete
and say please, city
change me

and one day i thought
i’d like to see the world through my father’s eyes
all roots and vines
and the simple need to create
and the feeling of dirt between your fingers
what does it feel like
to understand how the world works?
not its people, no, more important than that
how the seeds and the buds
and the soil interact
how to make something from nothing
from a small speck enveloped by your hand
i don’t understand
but you do
and we are the same height, but when i look at you
i am looking up
i am looking forward into the horizon
trying to see the sunset like you do
trying to understand the weary way you sit down
and the tired vigor with which you rise early each morning
to begin the cycle again
and i see you standing there, immobile
leaning for a brief moment on the handle of your *****
and i see the world dancing around you
just waiting for the movement of your hands, waiting
for the next order, the next command
the next request, as you begin again
and i try to understand
today, i thought
i'd like to see the world through my father's eyes

Resubmitting for you consideration. posted to HP, my first week here, and another that got swallowed up in the multitude of words.   But I like it a lot, it makes me smile and perhaps it will find a wider audience, a second time around.



Do Not Put a Poem Here Until You Have Bent your ear to Shakespeare's sonnets

Until you have bent your ear to Shakespeare's sonnets,
Till you have laughed with Ogden Nash,
Wept with Frost, visited Byron's ghost,
Read the songs of King Solomon,
And once you
Despair of being their equal,
Shed your winter coat of worry,
***** your courage to the sticking point,
Begin to write then with reckless courage,
Unfettered abandon, make a fool of yourself!

Scout the competition.
Weep, for you and I will never surpass
The giants who preceeded us, and yet,
**Laugh, cause they thought the same thing as well...

Ah yes,
fresh starts,
like
fresh white sheets meeting
fresh black newspapers,
doomed to the inevitability,
groomed for the probability,
that their intersection
will be
newsprint contamination,
a black and white
condemnation,  

So, a clarification:

this poem,
just like this moment,
a black and white surrogation,
a seventh day progeny
a sabbath moment,
must and will
and by definition,
be explained as an
interlocutory.^

fated to be
jubilee ended,
a pre and post
sabbatical
of but a
minute,
by law and custom,
destined to go up
in a smoking trinity of
white flame,
red wine,
and a cloud of
myrrh and salt incense.  

Sigh with me.

Join in and
inhabit my eyes,
enjoy the unsullied
white blanket
of fresh snow
that humanizes my insights,
and for this moment,
share my peace,
my unedged relief that
the levees have broken
and I am awash in
waves of drifted snowflakes composed
of salt sanctified water

I may be thin and
clarified,                  
but my visions are still
less than limitless,
my sabbath poems
are but
momentary evaporated residuals of melted snowflakes, heretofore, salty tears, that become

rivers
that become
oceans,
upon which no
Poet-Envisionary
can truly walk,
see his tomorrows,
or even,
especially even,
his past days,
with perfect
clarity

Through peach coloured faded blinds, you watch him type on ashen keyboards
Low music playing, he used to cut her hair, she was breathing
Words from a soul, or words from dictionaries faded as the blinds and walls and clothes on his back
A team of typists, all in a line (factory work and the repetitiveness of city living)
You notice the desk, cheap and flat-pack, worn markings exposition of veneer and wood
Did you spot the reference, or did it pass your eyes,
- are you a fan?
His derivative verse of Bukowski and the like is painful to eyes and corroding of the soul
Have you seen the bees flee?
Watch as the lights turn dead, and the oven burns red
I'm not sure if one could call it homely; his home
The way darkness arrives early each night above that house alone
and the way rabid foxes walk in large circles to avoid the shadow cast
You hear him cry at night
(and I feel ashamed at noticing you)

He sets himself alight, to feel something new
You watch from your couch and flip the channel

Are the old haunts getting older still,
by the night's final adieu, a wild dog scampers home
To lay beneath the old car with grass in the engine
and we both know the house is burning

The flashing lights in the street and the coked up vagrants dance rhythmically
Smoke contortions over the grassy morning dew
A girl with a vacant stare, from a bench afar, watches and flicks broken nails
Everything you are is nothing you want, still watching from the window
Pacing. Pacing.

(I am on the rooftop, and I saw it all.)