"eastward" poems
Across the leaden sky
A gull shooting a cry
Hurried to his task
Before the sky puts on his mask.
Nobody knew what his task was
Except that his time drew to a pause
And that he had to hurry because
From the open he had to retreat.
The bird knew this but he was wayward
Swimming in the airy wave, beak forward -
Skating, flying, but always eastward -
Heedless of the dark, like a poet.
(c) LazharBouazzi
Jul 24, 2018
Jul 24, 2018 at 1:37 PM UTC
In creature comforts of the West; I ponder.
As my heart strays eastward.
My star in the East?
"If there be a God..."
He must be capable of entering men's hearts,
they in turn bear witness to human suffering.
If this is so.
How can our brothers in Syria be suffering?
Why have they been forsaken?
"If there be a God?"
If there be a God.
If there be a God.
Allah? *
Dec 25, 2016
Dec 25, 2016 at 9:26 PM UTC
Across the leaden sky
A gull shooting a cry,
Hastens to his final task
Before the sky puts on his mask.
No one knew what his final task was
Except that his time drew to a pause
And that he had to hasten because
From the open he had to retreat.
This the bird knew, but he was wayward;
He swam in the airy waves, beak forward,
Skating-flying, but always eastward,
Heedless of the dark - like a poet.
©LazharBouazzi, 2017
Mar 28, 2017
Mar 28, 2017 at 5:00 PM UTC
A sea of foliage girds our garden round,
But not a sea of dull unvaried green,
Sharp contrasts of all colors here are seen;
The light-green graceful tamarinds abound
Amid the mango clumps of green profound,
And palms arise, like pillars gray, between;
And o'er the quiet pools the seemuls lean,
Red—red, and startling like a trumpet's sound.
But nothing can be lovelier than the ranges
Of bamboos to the eastward, when the moon
Looks through their gaps, and the white lotus changes
Into a cup of silver. One might swoon
Drunken with beauty then, or gaze and gaze
On a primeval Eden, in amaze.
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Across the oozy leaden sky
A seagull with a battle cry
Hurried to his ultimate task
Before the sky puts on his mask.
Nobody knew what his task was
Except that his time drew to a pause
And that he had to hurry because
From the open he had to retreat.
The bird knew that but he was wayward
Swimming in the airy wave beak forward
Skating flying but always eastward
Heedless of the dark like a poet.
LazharBouazzi, January 20, 2017
Jan 20, 2017
Jan 20, 2017 at 4:01 PM UTC
The tractor stands frozen - an agony
To think of. All night
Snow packed its open entrails. Now a head-pincering gale,
A spill of molten ice, smoking snow,
Pours into its steel.
At white heat of numbness it stands
In the aimed hosing of ground-level fieriness.
It defied flesh and won't start.
Hands are like wounds already
Inside armour gloves, and feet are unbelievable
As if the toe-nails were all just torn off.
I stare at it in hatred. Beyond it
The copse hisses - capitulates miserably
In the fleeing, failing light. Starlings,
A dirtier sleetier snow, blow smokily, unendingly, over
Towards plantations Eastward.
All the time the tractor is sinking
Through the degrees, deepening
Into its hell of ice.
The starting lever
Cracks its action, like a snapping knuckle.
The battery is alive - but like a lamb
Trying to nudge its solid-frozen mother -
While the seat claims my buttock-bones, bites
With the space-cold of earth, which it has joined
In one solid lump.
I squirt commercial sure-fire
Down the black throat - it just coughs.
It ridicules me - a trap of iron stupidity
I've stepped into. I drive the battery
As if I were hammering and hammering
The frozen arrangement to pieces with a hammer
And it jabbers laughing pain-crying mockingly
Into happy life.
And stands
Shuddering itself full of heat, seeming to enlarge slowly
Like a demon demonstrating
A more-than-usually-complete materialization -
Suddenly it jerks from its solidarity
With the concrete, and lurches towards a stanchion
Bursting with superhuman well-being and abandon
Shouting Where Where?
Worse iron is waiting. Power-lift kneels
Levers awake imprisoned deadweight,
Shackle-pins bedded in cast-iron cow-shit.
The blind and vibrating condemned obedience
Of iron to the cruelty of iron,
Wheels screeched out of their night-locks -
Fingers
Among the tormented
Tonnage and burning of iron
Eyes
Weeping in the wind of chloroform
And the tractor, streaming with sweat,
Raging and trembling and rejoicing.
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From dewy dreams, my soul, arise,
From love's deep slumber and from death,
For lo! the treees are full of sighs
Whose leaves the morn admonisheth.
Eastward the gradual dawn prevails
Where softly-burning fires appear,
Making to tremble all those veils
Of grey and golden gossamer.
While sweetly, gently, secretly,
The flowery bells of morn are stirred
And the wise choirs of faery
Begin (innumerous!) to be heard.
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Saying “Women of the Night”
Might be alright
As a description for some girls,
They stream eastward
Along the bank,
Checking for marauders and adjusting curls.
Yet courtesans are different;
They came as swiftly as they went,
Called on by important men.
From house and hotel they are borne,
In carriages, and in finery worn,
For those who have a yen.
Yet others still elude one name,
Of condemnation or fame.
They do not wander at men’s whims.
They deliver terms to him or him.
And live in dwellings finer still,
Until the payer has had his fill.
But with the latter does he ever
Tire of the source of pleasure?
For some the need outlasts his want,
And he becomes the supplicant!
Then woman’s wit becomes the master,
While her body wields a whip.
The sinner’s desire speeds still faster,
As she the body’s scale does tip.
Sep 5, 2017
Sep 5, 2017 at 11:49 AM UTC
Come, or the stellar tide will slip away.
Eastward avoid the hour of its decline,
Now! for the needle trembles in my soul!
Here we have had our vantage, the good hour.
Here we have had our day, your day and mine.
Come now, before this power
That bears us up, shall turn against the pole.
Mock not the flood of stars, the thing’s to be.
O Love, come now, this land turns evil slowly.
The waves bore in, soon they bear away.
The treasure is ours, make we fast land with it.
Move we and take the tide, with its next favour,
Abide
Under some neutral force
Until this course turneth aside.
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~
There is a happy flower
As proud as he can be
Living In a garden
Beneath the garden tree
Sunny skies of blue
What he loves to see
There is a happy flower
Growing wild and free
~
There is a happy flower
As cute as she can be
Living in a garden
Beneath the garden tree
Birds of every color
What she loves to see
There is a happy flower
Blooming beautifully
~
A funny thing did happen
Deep beneath the ground
In amongst the dirt and worms
Where darkness can be found
Roots began to travel
One set to the west
The other moving eastward
A very lengthy quest
Till one day it happened
The roots began to touch
They really loved the feeling
They loved it oh so much
These roots they grew connected
Locked together tight
Hoping that the other
Wishing that they might
Would know the others feelings
Soon become as one
Living life together
Underneath the sun
They’ll hold on for forever
Or till the end of time
Roots of his and roots of hers
Living intertwined
~
There are two happy flowers
Blooming Beautifully
In two different gardens
Beneath two different trees
Their roots to stay connected
Until eternity
Two happy little flowers
In love as they can be
Aug 20, 2014
Aug 20, 2014 at 9:25 AM UTC
a polar vortex
swirls eastward
on Siberian Tiger paws
bounding over
Appalachian Highlands
gobbling geography
gelling Great Lakes
spawning Erie blizzards
sculpting Wabash ice floes
clogging commerce all
along the Ohio River Valley
this voracious
juggernaut’s wide maw
bears icicle teeth
laughing as it swallows
Pittsburgh, Little Philly,
and a Big Apple, before
gorging itself on
generous portions
ladled into
simmering crocks
of steaming
Boston Baked Beans
growling
blue arctic
air blasts roar
bursts pipes
savages the heat
of blasting furnaces,
bubbling boilers, hot
belly stoves frantically
drinking oil, flaming gas
burning wood and
burping soot
the blistering
jet stream claws
screech a slashing
stratospheric hum
as Frigidaire blasts
swallows breath
brittles limbs
chafes cheeks
gnaws earlobes
crystallizes tears
nibbles nostrils
cubes snot
numbs toes
bites digits
diving sub zero
gradient subdues
batteries to
deaden states
delays buses
derails trains
cuts power
constricts veins
preys on
vagabonds
and animals
get the homeless
off the street!
bring the animals in
check on your
elderly neighbors
don’t get caught outside
and shut the **** door!
do you own stock
in the Public Service?
beware the polar vortex
and next months heating bill
Sonny Boy Williamson
& Otis Spann
Nine Below Zero
Oakland
1/6/14
jbm
Jan 6, 2014
Jan 6, 2014 at 2:43 PM UTC
Feeling fine
I am a paper cup full of ice
An inter-dimensional (being)
Laughing
And
Agreeing
Take off your disguise,
Beautiful
Let me see those pearly-eyes
Ruby lips
Diamond cheek bones
May I kiss?
May I sit?
Good to see you
Great to be here
Can I pour you some tea?
Two cubes of sugar
A tad of cream
A little rat poison
To help you dream
Half-closed eyes
And leaning
Gossamer dreaming
As you play piano
For no reason at all
You play with the treble
Line to line
Perfect pretty rhytm
Dancing in time
The melody of your thin dress
And the shape it reveals
Limbs and weeds
The music swells
A dash of lust
Your summer smell
A fragrant perfume
The jump of eyes
Northward
Eastward
Westward
Skys
The spark of fingers
A flash electric blue
The kitchen light
Is dripping on you
The teeth of your smile
The color of white
*No my love
I cannot stay
With summer here
It's time to play
If your mother says you can't come out
I'll stand outside
I'll scream
I'll shout
Over radios
And t.v screens
Shooting cap pistols
At everything
Because last night I had a dream
You called on the phone
I heard your whisper
Infinite dial tone
On the reciever
Lie dreamer*
Jun 4, 2013
Jun 4, 2013 at 11:25 PM UTC
When I meet the morning beam,
Or lay me down at night to dream,
I hear my bones within me say,
"Another night, another day.
"When shall this slough of sense be cast,
This dust of thoughts be laid at last,
The man of flesh and soul be slain
And the man of bone remain?
"This tongue that talks, these lungs that shout,
These thews that hustle us about,
This brain that fills the skull with schemes,
And its humming hive of dreams,--
"These to-day are proud in power
And lord it in their little hour:
The immortal bones obey control
Of dying flesh and dying soul.
"'Tis long till eve and morn are gone:
Slow the endless night comes on,
And late to fulness grows the birth
That shall last as long as earth.
"Wanderers eastward, wanderers west,
Know you why you cannot rest?
'Tis that every mother's son
Travails with a skeleton.
"Lie down in the bed of dust;
Bear the fruit that bear you must;
Bring the eternal seed to light,
And morn is all the same as night.
"Rest you so from trouble sore,
Fear the heat o' the sun no more,
Nor the snowing winter wild,
Now you labour not with child.
"Empty vessel, garment cast,
We that wore you long shall last.
--Another night, another day."
So my bones within me say.
Therefore they shall do my will
To-day while I am master still,
And flesh and soul, now both are strong,
Shall hale the sullen slaves along,
Before this fire of sense decay,
This smoke of thought blow clean away,
And leave with ancient night alone
The stedfast and enduring bone.
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wet. ambition of her silken hair
scatter my moral compass
but after terse words
we set out on the road
her tale carries us for miles
and leads to many thoughts
but I'm easily distracted and distraught
by soapbox celebritys and their
rabid claims to fame
and am left to letting her choose our path
she pens regrets to me and mails them
to the wrong address so ill never know her love for me
has grown cold
I befriend the postman
putting the letters of my words
carefully on his face with a fine line pen
but he keeps whispering that I should be
so sad because love has been rejected
and my heart was returned marked postage due
the description sours when
the ink hits the page
never quite suits the thought
as we trundle along the stony path
the bone rattling pace lends misgivings
find my way home in the song of her heart
find my weary way to her door
turning the door inward
and see the vault of her hearts fortress
reduced to rubble ans she has
now gone
she has fled eastward
wagon laden with tales and trinkets
her blue dress flowing over the side and fluttering in the breeze
wet ambition is no mercy
wet ambition is cold
Jul 22, 2013
Jul 22, 2013 at 2:25 PM UTC
I make my grave in her dark treason of hair,
Fragrant master of soldiers and memories,
Bei capelli, conspiracy of internecine curls.
Her upbraidings strangle all my sweet nothings
To breathless wish of the emperor-purple of lips.
Flow then like black gloss of birds
And the brood hatchlings of shadow, exiled eastward,
Fled like a premonition of warmth somewhere far off,
While the wine-colored blood spills his heart into a throng of mouths.
Love, you are the hardest grave,
Were you ever just a kiss
Or always from daggers made?
Jun 4, 2019
Jun 4, 2019 at 1:52 PM UTC
He lives in his farm house by the hills, his
quiet life of contentment, seeking, creating,
discovering; Oh he’s a scientist, and
he grafts his poem trees; Beautiful plumes do
they grow for flowers, which fly out eastward
every morning; Well now he does, the sweet
fruit of these: eat poems to live? Silencing
those who asked him once. Oh and some of the
plants can talk: beyond our hearing, ultrasound.
Penetrating objects our eyes otherwise.
see not: stones; metals; oh don’t we carry
venoms of hatred in metal tubes of
veins crossing our hearts, conveying darkness
across the seas? These poem trees, talking, can
see through. And tell, when some leaks out, causing
fires, and deaths in a school or train station.
Quiet life of contentment, seeking, creating,
discovering; Living in his farm house
by the hills. His work at http://dreamtube.stream
Jan 4, 2015
Jan 4, 2015 at 12:35 PM UTC
O, Lord of the Meeting Rivers!
I am here, eastward
To the rising sun.
Presenting myself,
Bare hands and feet.
Lord, I am weak and frail.
Riverward, my reflection stirs.
A drop stirs the river.
Lord, I am weak and frail.
I have but one question.
O Lord, O.
Why.
Nov 7, 2015
Nov 7, 2015 at 8:59 AM UTC
Southward with fleet of ice
Sailed the corsair Death;
Wild and gast blew the blast,
And the east-wind was his breath.
His lordly ships of ice
Glisten in the sun;
On each side, like pennons wide,
Flashing crystal streamlets run.
His sails of white sea-mist
Dripped with silver rain;
But where he passed there were cast
Leaden shadows o’er the main.
Eastward from Campobello
Sir Humphrey Gilbert sailed;
Three days or more seaward he bore,
Then, alas! the land-wind failed.
Alas! the land-wind failed,
And ice-cold grew the night;
And nevermore, on sea or shore,
Should Sir Humphrey see the light.
He sat upon the deck,
The Book was in his hand;
“Do not fear! Heaven is as near,”
He said, “by water as by land!”
In the first watch of the night,
Without a signal’s sound,
Out of the sea, mysteriously,
The fleet of Death rose all around.
The moon and the evening star
Were hanging in the shrouds;
Every mast, as it passed,
Seemed to rake the passing clouds.
They grappled with their prize,
At midnight black and cold!
As of a rock was the shock;
Heavily the ground-swell rolled.
Southward through day and dark,
They drift in cold embrace,
With mist and rain, o’er the open main;
Yet there seems no change of place.
Southward, forever southward,
They drift through dark and day;
And like a dream, in the Gulf-Stream
Sinking, vanish all away.
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Merrick, was he
And now farmer.
The ghost of the Euridi wars
But now simply father.
She gave unto him Ilo
And then passed.
A treasure from her *****
For what more could he ask?
The grey in his hair
And the wrinkle upon his skin.
As his daughter kissed his cheek
He thought not of past sin.
Ilo sang as the angels
And glided with beauty.
But her sickness had doomed her
To waste away rudely.
Traveller Nner spoke of
Arcadia and the four ghosts of God.
Far away, over mountains
Plagued by demons and monsters odd.
Ilo can live again,
Warrior-farmer-father.
Across the desert, ocean, and mountains
Do not falter.
Staff in hand,
Upon Kerona he rides.
Eastward towards the ghosts
With Ilo's body by his side.
Dragon of desert lands,
From the sand to the sky, fly
Breathe of fire, brimstone
A war through the night.
Cut deep
The flesh of the fire breather.
For your daughter Ilo's soul
Hangs in the ether.
Victory and blood
But her body lies still.
No gain from this battle.
Only sorrow and hatred to feel.
Forward to the ocean,
To the lair of the giant serpent.
The one who drinks up the waters
And will not relent.
The mighty beast,
He steals away Ilo's body.
To the floor of the earth,
Beckoning Merrick hotly.
A foul beast has stolen
The body of my daughter.
Merrick breathes in all the air
And follows after.
A war under water,
Flesh and blood in twain.
****** into the belly of the beast.
A nameless grave.
Burst forth from the entrails,
Ripped, bitten, and torn.
Another beast overcame.
Another victory, though forlorn.
He holds her body
And her head against his.
A tear he permits.
His life would he give.
To the forests of Zalvest
To the lair of evil.
Black magic awaits
To unravel his meddle.
Trickery of the mind,
Manipulated with horror.
Recalling the gruesome battles of Euridi
And comrades lost to war.
Blinded by fear,
By the demon wizard of Zalvest.
How helpless he feels.
Lay the ghost to rest.
Acceptance of sin,
Parting with guilt.
A wizard rendered weak,
The evil-willed welps.
To the four ghosts of God
Atop the mountains of Arcadia.
Breathe life to Ilo
I have bested the sons of Echidna.
Not ghosts of God,
But of the devil.
A sacrifice for a life,
A hero laid low to their level.
And Ilo is raised,
Her breathe is now her own.
With his parting words
His love is shown.
Oct 28, 2013
Oct 28, 2013 at 4:23 AM UTC
The sea was sapphire coloured, and the sky
Burned like a heated opal through the air;
We hoisted sail; the wind was blowing fair
For the blue lands that to the eastward lie.
From the steep prow I marked with quickening eye
Zakynthos, every olive grove and creek,
Ithaca’s cliff, Lycaon’s snowy peak,
And all the flower-strewn hills of Arcady.
The flapping of the sail against the mast,
The ripple of the water on the side,
The ripple of girls’ laughter at the stern,
The only sounds:—when ‘gan the West to burn,
And a red sun upon the seas to ride,
I stood upon the soil of Greece at last!
1.6k
the Saskatchewan plains (planes,
plain) stretch eastward beyond you;
sumptuous emptiness pocked with
the 14 hour streetlight of the sun- -
you are out of your mind and in
everything else. you are free now.
remember that you do not find
yourself. you create yourself(z)
you create yourself(z) - -
Jan 2, 2014
Jan 2, 2014 at 1:42 PM UTC
I had the flu
When I was eight
Twenty seven
Blankets on top
Couldn't stop
My shivering
At five o'clock
In the eaveing
I got a hand
free from the pile
And saw the inch
Between the tips
Of my fingers
In every vein
was the same inch
Lump in my throat
One inch in size
Sinuses too
Everything = One
Then it would change
Fingers double apart
Throat double filled
Everything = Two
Then
Tilting my head
Twenty Seven
Degrees eastward
Focusing out
Bedroom window
A megazord
In my backyard
In every vein
My sinuses
And down my throat
I had the flu
Jun 21, 2010
Jun 21, 2010 at 7:44 PM UTC
My memories are alphebetized and filed in steel cabinets
But at least I've never paid taxes.
These tracks rack my heavy head,
And with consistancy of lose lead I find I make my bed
Eastward and upward and moving forward feels back asswards
And not only have my once-loved-ones forgot their own adivce...
They let street rats dine, dash and flash feces like crack rocks.
School of the soft-knox they bare qualities close to the itch of a chicken pock.
Rockin' failure in the lines on their faces, I've placed this between I and U,
These steel tracks rack, my, how the time does fly when
You've never paid taxes.
And I'm dusting off files close forgotten,
Tucking rotten ones behind other cold cases
Using laughter to mock roofed and mute traces of
Never more and here we go again.
But if only! If only the woodpecker croaked!
Jokes pried from pedestals marked "short lived" -
Six suicides long and my hometowns *** is wound so tight
It actually drops diamonds. of course in spite of this
The majority spit is ****
Misery takes to masses, foul stench latched, snatched,
Roofed and mute and at least I've never paid taxes.
(Written 3/12)
Jun 10, 2012
Jun 10, 2012 at 10:17 PM UTC
Abreast the Thames river strong,
On which boats form a throng
There is a city known to me.
A city that's yet to be free.
Pulsing streets, and royal treats
Do the senses overwhelm, But I must entreat:
Who is it, in this city, at the helm?
Is it the people, bright and cordial with which the power reigns?
Or is it the river, majestically flowing, because she never wanes?
Is it he who sits in gaudy parliament seat with subsidized meat?
Or is it the crown who owns every meter and every beat of every poet and every street?
The church? Nay, there are no need for tithes, as the tides, the VAT is high.
The dark beauty rumbles through, not standing, she waves goodbye.
She bellows through London, intrinsically free.
Her Majesty seeks her union with the Sea.
Unbridled by pence and pound,
Thames continues down, down, down.
In London, though quite the town, she flows Eastward bound,
For she will not compete for her rightful crown.
Sep 21, 2016
Sep 21, 2016 at 12:26 PM UTC