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

i.

at the edge of a dark sky,
where the framed door
lies closed and the
rain’s smooth octaves
gather the last lonesome
heart-beat of the summer in
its mists that tap the door,

ii.

the grey air,
cloud-drawn, straps
its satchel to its back
its stones the silvers
of a silent moon,

iii.

its stones sombre and smoky,
the dead of night,
a crimson king
a blossoming flower,

iv.

where the night’s slated
roof listens to the rains
urgent rushings, silver
and shaded like a storm,

words of the air
sinking back like the
desolate waves that hush
the sands as they drown
their sorrows in baskets
conjured out of the breath
of the grey-eyed night.

v.

you kiss me and i start to
swoon, i swoon like a garden
rose that climbed once to
the sky, a garden overgrown  
with the quiet of apple-coloured
leaves, the summer with its vines,
its leaves the bright rain drops,
its leaves the visions of the air.

the road to the sun
weeps to fall in the shadows,
sweet breath of the sky.

We sat on that old pier,
as the others crab-fished by.
I found my hands beneath me,
in an attempt to keep them dry.

I traced the outline of a mountain range
with my tired, tearful eyes,
and the sun pinned me to the concrete wall,
stripping me of any disguise.

The fresh wounds on my shoulder
still oozed their precious blood,
yet we talked of days still to come
and summers, oh so far ahead.

Yet for a moment I almost believed that
what I’d done had been undone
but you struck me with reality
and my walls came tumbling down.

We looked at each other,
in the wild, unsettling sun,
with the sea-surf sparkling blue
and voices of our distant friends

ringing of the new
and interesting discovery that one crab, no, two,
had broken through the green net -
maybe that was you.

Some call him a dreamer
   quiet, sad and deeper
than water in a river
    after the floods come

    dark like the light
outside a widower's curtains
   when the moon hides
behind clouds gray as yesterday

and the day before
   and whatever sorrow
tomorrow or
  the night has in store.

At dusk I hang up
a worn blue work
shirt that smells
strongly of love
of dirt of the earth
melancholy, sweat
yesterday's brews
the blues, regret
twenty cigarettes
black breath
of the bone moth
old blood, moon dust
spring pollen, summer
grass, Autumnal ****
winter's cold blast
sea salt and pine needles
mountain laurel, desert air
my dog's hair, I swear
I can't bear the thought
of washing or throwing away
all the stains, the growing pains
the laughter, the sorrows
these history lessons I need
to get me through tomorrow.