Kasserine poems on Hello Poetry

Lazhar Bouazzi Jul 2017

A new Tunisian poetic genre is born.
What is a "Kasserine"?
Structure:
A Kasserine is a new poetic genre created on July 9, 2017. In it all is condensed in two lines with a sum total of thirteen or fourteen syllables. Its first line cannot exceed seven of them.
The title of a Kasserine must be an integral part of the poem in terms of interpretation. The number of its syllables must not exceed seven.
Subject matter:
In a Kasserine nature and imagination perform the same poetic activity. Nature ceases to be a mere mirror reflecting the feelings of the poet, the political or social situation, etc., and becomes symbolic in the very moment it renounces representation as a one-to-one correspondence . Nature in a Kasserine has no existence prior to the pricking into action of the imagination by the self of the poet. For, even though it is groundless (it does not belong to the self), the imagination has no intentionality of its own; this is why it needs the intentionality of the subject in order to be operative.
Samples of a Kasserine

Ruby Sun
Among amethyst silk clouds
She flirts with the sapphire sea
(c) Paula Swenson, USA

Tunisia
A fair island of light
in my imagination
(c) Jeffard Ster, USA

Red Giant
A star inside her implodes
Heavens of chaos unfold
(c) Stefan David Sederscog, Sweden

Voyeurism
The sea kisses the sky
Imagination beholds.
© LazharBouazzi, Tunisia

Note: Friends and acquaintances are cordially invited to start writing sublime (marked by repression of meaning) Kasserines.
(c)Lazhar Bouazzi, 9 July, 2017.

Lazhar Bouazzi Jul 2018

The Swim

Azure was the sky, and leaden was the sea;
Not surprising would the discord be
For him who has read Wordsworth.

What ailed his thoughts were the debris
Of broken glass fishermen-in-boats
Might have thrown into the ocean
On a night of 'Celtia'* with no pairing,

Or the sight of a woman’s dress
Whose swollen darkness was
A sea urchin, whose quills
Were plucked by the greenness of rust;

Or a German parachute
Over Kasserine pass**, my thyme nest
And the center of Tunisia.

©LazharBouazzi, July 15, 2018

*'Celtia' is the oldest and most popular tunisian beer
**The Battle of Kasserine Pass was a battle of the Tunisia Campaign of World War II that took place in February 1943. Kasserine Pass is a 2-mile-wide (3.2 km) gap in the Grand Dorsal chain of the Atlas Mountains in west central Tunisia. The Axis forces, led by Generalfeldmarschall Erwin Rommel, were primarily from the Afrika Korps Assault Group, elements of the Italian Centauro Armoured Division and two Panzer divisions detached from the 5th Panzer Army, while the Allied forces consisted of the U.S. II Corps (Major General Lloyd Fredendall),[5] the British 6th Armoured Division (Major-General Charles Keightley) and other parts of the First Army (Lieutenant-General Kenneth Anderson).
The battle was the first major engagement between American and Axis forces in World War II in Africa. Inexperienced and poorly led American troops suffered many casualties and were quickly pushed back over 50 miles (80 km) from their positions west of Faïd Pass.[5] After the early defeat, elements of the U.S. II Corps, with British reinforcements, rallied and held the exits through mountain passes in western Tunisia, defeating the Axis offensive. As a result of the battle, the U.S. Army instituted sweeping changes of unit organization and replaced commanders[5] and some types of equipment.” (Wikipedia)
Ironically (or, correspondingly), West central Tunisia (notably Kasserine mountains) are now being used by what is left of Islamist terrorists, whose colors are green and black, as their headquarters in their battle against democracy. (my note)

Lazhar Bouazzi Jul 2019

Summer in Kasserine

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

Lazhar Bouazzi Jul 2017

Trip by "Peugeot" From Carthage to Kasserine:La Condition Humaine

I
On the canvas of the sky
Tow figures had been executed:
A rugged boat coming to a halt,
By several dunes of salt
(A verse looming
In the folds of haste
And the sameness of waste).
II
Like the seeds of pine
Tearing a tree line,
Dried, black grains of rain
Riddled our “Peugeot"
Sailing like a flow
Of camels - on the asphalt.
III
In “Peugeots" and grace an expert,
Not in camels & the desert
Where the night no dune can avert,
For it falls at once like a curtain.
© LazharBouazzi, Carthage, TUNISIA, July 30, 2017

— The End —