I pose high my chest of ragged ribbons
And unravel a fist to stretch out fingers in search
Of a hand glimmering pale like a lantern
throughout this grey
        empty space. Once a pavement, now as good as

Cloud. Frozen lake. Dust. Boiling ashes. Skeletons.

I am walking on the slashed frames of waves
As jesus once must have. Propelled to a miracle unwitnessned
To anyone but myself. I am impelled to corrode
Into a statue; to remain a rigamortic rotting jade jewel in the sun
Until I no longer can.
Until they found me...

Perhaps they'd dust me off, thaw the ice from my shoulders,
Rehydrate me and gorge me,
Restart the blinking light in my brain
And refrain me evermore from having to seek.

But seek I must, for the lonliness weighs me down
Further by the day. I take half as many steps now as when I began my voyage.
My memories are like ghosts of flames that play
Snakes and ladders and hide and seek.
I am the lighthouse man and I sail drunken--
A rubicund mishape of bone and scuffed thoughts,
I can feel every soul which once embodied and huddled this place.

It's like they are trying so hard to posses me but even
Their souls have been smouldered to whispers
So thin they ring as mutely as the surrounding mist,
So soft they vibrate akin to an infant’s pulse
Throughout these walls, these scrapyards, these crumbling arcades, this sandbox grey that begs for a scream.
The spirit of a tarantula trembles along my back and grazes it teeth against my shoulderblade,
Preying that I turn to confirm it's being –but it's a game I’ve long grown sick of–


I am the lighthouse man and I ceased having a face long ago.
What I recall of my reflection was a child so young and so sure
Of a different life that

I cannot be sure it's even me.

I am the lighthouse man; a puckered bulb balancing on too-big shoulders, that walked
  through barren flat closes and exited empty handed, the lonely poltergeist,
a bitter flab of skin.

I am the lighthouse man and I am the final Aspen leaf in the pond of the universe,
I see myself reflected in a sole star twirling underfoot and overhead
rowing my ears so thick with disfigured silence so that I wish I was born deaf.
I am the lighthouse man and my mind is a spinning fragment
    my eyes can merely follow and my floating steps merely trail.

It never changes tone here, I can only vaguely trace the time
By the occasional moon. Tonight it shines half chewed,
  Befitting the levelled star a sideways crown.
It is beautiful but I mustn't stop to admire, lest a survivor
Scavenger loses patience withholding the last of their scran.

I am the lighthouse man and I haven't eaten in years.

I am the lighthouse man and I bled for the first time yestardy.
I am the lighthouse man and my bulb ricocheted off the base of my skull
In a telling fairy tale dream. I felt static in my head
And my light's ink spilled across my hands and for a minute I thought
My light had gone out. I tasted blood,
Trickled down from my stinging nose and I had never been so scared.

I am the lighthouse man and I never knew I could die.

I am the lighthouse man. Once the world danced with magic and I was
A walking satellite that grew to want to dissapear.
I am the lighthouse man and my decrepitude is casted in my hands:
Black as the night from the dirt collected over the years.
The few slashes of skin clear enough to see look rust-like and obtrusive, outdone only by
My veins like wonky bruises that vine across the silhouetted bone;
Bridging gear to gear, clinking shivering knuckles
         That want nothing more than to surrender.

But I am only frostbit, not frozen.
Life was and thus must still be.
I am a raindrop, not the whole ocean.

I am a walking lighthouse inspecting and guiding empty seas,
A form without virtue
That ceased feeling it's metallic steps too long ago to recall.
A cubist teardrop falling down a grey giant's cheek,
Waiting to be captured and swallowed.

Or perhaps I am climbing uphill, slowly along the circumference of his forehead.
So slowly I cannot notice the rise. Perhaps I was destined to amble in hypnosis,
En route on this colourless limboid curve until I forget the concept of
             a destination, a soul, a matryr jester to rouse me awake...
             and perhaps it is then that I will be blessed with the heavenly bulb

Of the weeping giant on whom's flesh I disturb.
I am the lighthouse man and I dream of purpose.

I am the the lighthouse man with a penchance to levitate
I am the lighthouse man and I am a God without tool or reason.
I am the lighthouse man and I'll walk this limbo until my feet dissapear.

I am the lighthouse man and I am cursed.
I am the lighthouse man transitioning between lives and never knowing
Causality nor the answer. There are no questions to have;

I am the lighthouse man and I must have been a murderer in my past life.
I am the lighthouse man and I can feel my inner fuses twist,
Falling fainter and fainter by the second.
I am the lighthouse man and I will not make it another night.
I am the lighthouse man and I am a memory-bank full of nothing remarkable.
If I felt this months ago then perhaps I would make due with the my sojourn of an empty house, atop a parked car, and perhaps I would be contempt with rotting.

But now the moon shines so luminously bright and full and close! So very close!
I am the lighthouse man and I chase the moon.
I am the lighthouse man and I vaguely recall my mother saying 'do not eat the moon,
It will give you nightmares!’ and it all suddenly makes sense now.

The stars are all out tonight and they await my company. I am the lighthouse man and now I run.
I run run run run for the sky in ode to the rest of the bodies that abandoned this place.

Obedient
Superfluous minced rubicund aqua Phoenician
Our orphanage spills blood from picnics
Menopause conniptions lipstick
Her sons learning curve
Popstar gentleman suicide
The preschoolers last taste of Apple juice
Enola gay is soaring above the vain
Potential future poets and mathematicians
Bright eyes and innocent giggles
The souls of peace
Molecules disintegrate of wondrous dreams

(This is a group poetry slam. The bolded lines are said in unison. I was in charge of the "yellow" sections)

A technicolor finish tainting paint on hate drenched signs
Alex: picketing picking away bits of lips, slicing silence into arms and hips
rainbows were not always so black and blue
Brigitte: yanked from the sky by a brood of vipers, dragged through mud and fire, pummeled until we see double.
Nicole: Poison placed on children’s tongues, “******” never tasted as sour as when describing
Audrey: translucent half circles shamed into not showing their true colors
Allie: We hide the private parts of ourselves, but what if our sheer existence clouds some sets of eyes with rage?
Even the speed of light can’t escape lids clenched tight like fists.  

Red
Brigitte: First crush is a hot sweat and perpetual throat lump
Molten shame gurgling beneath the tender flesh of your candy apple cheeks
Stains memory like spilled red wine
She was intoxicating
Red flecked rosacea readily recalls
Her name a cherry aftertaste, berry sweet yet crimson thirsty
red is the color of metamorphosis. of hormones misbehaving. of flushed ******* and a wish dancing on another girl’s lips.
Of bullseyes tattooed on wrists
Red is a warning of children’s taunts and old, wary eyes. It is the hue of thought blind hatred

Orange
Allie: The shade of autumn leaves slowly passing on
Grim reminders of slowly approaching school hallways that sneer taunts
Orange the color of names thrown into aching ears
******
Thrown into breaking hearts
Queer
Thrown into minds full of orange flickering bonfires of shame
Orange
The color of beautiful things slowly dying

Yellow
Alex: Like the caution signs on winding roads
Barely illuminated when the sky is too dark
Seen too late before a crash
Twisted metal ringing in our ears like
Twisted thoughts ringing in our ears like
When we recognize a crush that sets us apart
That tells us we're
Not normal, not right
Like fading bruises as we tell ourselves
That we're just yellow bellied cowards
As we tell ourselves
That on straight roads we wouldn't crash
And with straight hearts we wouldn't bleed

Green
Nicole: I feel sick
“A little green around the gills”
as I swim away is that why I’m drowning
in these murky waters of
“What if”s and “i don’t know”s
I have always been certain of the leafy canopies and garden inside of me
but this vine of uncertainty sprouted
and is choking me
I should not feel afraid for what I am because
this life is green and sprouting but there are
forest fires of hate spreading
We see the smoke signals all around us
our magnificent green fading to ashes

Blue and Purple
Audrey: Blue curtains block out the world that lurks just outside
Waiting to hurt me.
8 pm.
Purple dusk is gathering outside my walls
The same way the bruises on my heart threaten to eclipse the sun.
I'm scared.
I don't look at the veins  beneath my skin because they
Remind me too much of the purple-red blood
That spills too often from my arms,
Reminds me of my father's face
Purple with rage
When I told him
9 pm. Navy skies I will not see again
Purple pen writing apologies
Heart pumping blood too fast,
No time,
Can't breathe, face purple,
Can't breathe, face blue
Can't breathe.


They took away our rainbow. Let’s take it back.

Purple and Blue
Audrey: I love the way the sky turns lavender before the sun rises
I love the way your long hair and pale curves look
Against the blue sheets
I love not hiding who we are.
We should get Purple Hearts for all the times
The missiles of queer and butch have landed in
The midst of our embrace,
Launched by an unknown enemy before we were able
To twine our hands and hearts on small-town sidewalks
Laying under the lilac bushes,
Watching the day slip into purple dusk with firefly stars.
I love not hiding who we are.

Green
Nicole: once a cowering seed deep underground
Sprouting up through a crack in the slab of
concrete hate concrete rejection
because fresh life will destroy hate
even if it is slowly, one seed at a time
we are not weeds in your garden
green
a safe place the sun shining
fresh sprouting buds anticipating something beautiful
the prelude to a symphony of colors
green
sprouting from the earth
we do not need to prove that we are not unnatural
but grown from the same soil

Yellow
Alex: Somewhere in the middle of the rainbow like I'm
Somewhere in the middle of the spectrum
Associated with the sun and the stars but
Not with day and night
Because things are never quite as black and white as we make them out to be
Yellow, in the middle of pink and blue on the pansexual flag
Acknowledging that there are people out there
Who could love people like me
And yellow like dandelions
Changing daily into pieces drifting away
To end up regrown in dirt
Just like anything else

Orange
Allie: The shade of sunrise
A beautiful dawn of hope and opportunity
Peeking over the horizon
The passage of time and hopefully some ******* laws
Orange the warmth of a new day pouring some happiness into what once was a seemingly endless night
Orange the color of change

Red
Brigitte: sunshine ray burn cozy in your proud heart
blood rush, fire burst, lovesick intensity smoldering in your eyes
Red is a love fusion ignited inward and radiating out like a star
illuminating the night regardless of how dark the nothing is around it
Red is grown up, a rubicund shamelessness sewn with time into the marrow of your bones
Roll out the red carpet, paint roses on the town
Blood is not only death, it’s also life

Audrey: Acceptance!
Nicole: Life!
Alex: Hope!
Allie: Change!
Brigitte: Love!

**Pride comes in ALL colors

My soul whispered a secret to my heart,
It spoke of spilled blood upon a rose,
Rouged lips within the garden,
Drops of crimson liquid blush.

[CHORUS]
Nature’s beloved colour is green,
So red speaks of originality,
Blood is a passion,
Scarlet bleeding from thy own,
A claret sun dawning beyond,
Sanguine stained skies.

When the little cardinal sings sweetly,
A doorway opens I never chose,
Visions of a bloodshot key,
A lock rusted with dried blood.

A glimpse through the keyhole,
A pale forest awaits on the other side,
Showers of cherry blossoms,
Falling upon the snow.

Red berries bloom under crystal snow,
Glints of sunlight touch down,
Sparks of fire captured within,
Just beyond this rubicund door.

[CHORUS]

The dreams I am allowed,
Burn and scar my will,
When the door swings open,
Of its own accord.

Damask petals on the wind.
How warm and gentle that spray of blood,
Like a hundred tender kisses,
And the golden keys to Heaven.

I glimpsed the gules of true heraldry,
A suffused spirit at the dawn of memory,
Imprisoned by a cage of vermillion frost,
Warmed by a glass of spiced wine.

[CHORUS]

A roseate palace at the end of a long walk,
Painted titian by my tear drops,
Caress a florid complexion,
Carmine not my own.

Roan stones dusted,
By the fall of Angels light,
Make-believe incarnadine carpet of,
A mirrored auburn dusk.

I settle back into the maroon night,
The darkness flushed by concealed art,
Bay canvas touched-up with unreal imagery,
Indifferent to the passing of my former life.

[CHORUS]

Rubies fall from ruddy clouds,
These gems are not for me,
Reddened glass has come to pass,
The moment of my undoing.

[PAUSE (Epilogue)]

Red is not for me,
Red was not meant to be...

in the breath of the lights,
I wander through the hysterical
questions of urban mystery.

they play like a forgotten measure
of an ancient symphony, recorded
on mental parchment...

with my invisible fingers, I try
to trace those chords
back to the harmonic puzzle
from whence they came.

yet, I am swallowed by dissonant
voices, speaking from the black windows
and rubicund eyes, burnt
into memory.

so, do those questions
still exist somewhere
beneath that
which is
audible?

I do not yet hear them.

Down Edgbaston I forgot how to feel.
Perhaps the cumulus clouds
could downsize my anger;
envy would  pulsate into ebony,
under my rubicund smile
inherited from yesterday

And yet she moves, silently,
spinning and swirling endlessly
revolving, around a rousing star,
elegant ballet stealing radiance

indulging in warmth, in glacial
space unfathomable sphere
of incandescence, fluid rubicund
lava leisurely turning into blue

water, mystifying evolution
randomly combining hydrogen
and oxygen elements to unfold,
a liquid carpet englobing

all, to the mercy of a pale
faced moon, meticulously keeping
a distance so perfect and rare
to bear, mutating molecules

spontaneously deciding to form
cells, eager to evolve slowly
birthing life in its depths, breathing
to ensure, generous exchange

a fair give and take, a cycle where
harmonic balance is
the orchestrated oeuvre
of an omnificent composer

inventing notes of gravity,
creating abstruse species
out of fantasy, only to craft
itself a witness, capable

of understanding the amazing
wonders it ceaselessly unfurls.

"Has an Ur-
Tablet
Ever been
Whispered
To a poet -
(Un) like an ancient
Prophet?",

Sang a rubicund
Parrot
Hanging in an apple
Tree.

LazharBouazzi, February 25, 2017

The Sun fades.
Sun spots dimmed.
Freckles fading at the over-ripening
of the lea of cheek and breast. Rubicund.
She has drawn it, suckled and ******,
drank the mad draught of sacchriferious redolence,
licked the stein with rushing tongue and now
alone stands still in space-fills,
formless in wade waters of light.
It fades.
And in the blanket blackout cacoethes,
phantoms and spectres expectorate pale puke,
lighter than air and leaden hearts beat to molten messes,
sparking rumitorium of fire, concupiscible
sputum spectacular sub-spectrum sun *****
hot spill-out wretched staccato jerks and stops,
red lightening,
angry light dancing to the difficult steps of a jittery birth.
She shines.
Eyes clenched like vengeance,
She shines.
Like a sick sun,
open mouthed and out of control.
She shines.

fine Furhman's Funeral Home
used the best alchemy money could
buy, to keep her flesh fresh

and a master seamstress
sewed her wicked wounds so not
a single soul could see

she was stabbed forty times
from her rubicund cheeks to her
pedicured toes

Furhman's was the best, above
the mediocre rest, in gifting mourners
with a pleasant view

when I got their bill in the mail
it had an itemized list, which included
a charge I had to contest

not because of penury or pettiness
for I am a wealthy weeping father, but
I couldn't see spending a red dime

for crimson polish they painted
on dead toes, slid in slick hose, and
hid in patent leather shoes

my wife said write a check for the
full amount, crying this was not about
what we the living could yet see

Baton Rouge, April, 1989

People think it, a test to institute upon _to be out off their morals rubicund _and therefore comply it to the unyielding duty of others _on pretext dully that they should not be upset at fact , only expiate them alone _the reason of divine patience seldom for their due reverence, but their vulgarity ...
The reason of this fore stated, lays in the fact that : some individuals deliberately crudely hurt others or their surrounding, but rather apprehend in advance how conciliate solicitous the others should reaction in the case of their intentionally perpetrated aggression . facilis descensus avernis, they give no regard .
Therefore if you are  lovers, dont fail your partner and make it a point of probing test upon the fondness of her or his love .
If you are parents or children dont say hard words or ill treat you parents or siblings {accordingly to each position } and expect it, better way to cast a look about submission or paid respect to adulthood nor a gabbling sports .
Love needs mutual confidence .
Any little doubt of one side is doubly resented by the other .
The practice of good is well reverenced .
And real love casts off fear and ill apprehension .
So why try to do bad, when you know that it will bring nothing but trouble ?

I still have hopes.

You stare at your book through your circular spectacles— carob eyes hinted with specks of caramel hidden within the fragile glass as your fingers daintily flip through the parchment-colored pages. Your pearly teeth sinks mildly onto your bottom lip, lightly chewing on the soft flesh as your eyes trace every word. With your nose crinkling, your cheeks rubicund, and your messy hair slightly falling just before your eyes; I realized that you were such a wonderful thing to observe so thoroughly, and I realized that maybe, just maybe, I was falling for you harder than I intended to.

I still have hopes that I may be able to tell you how beautiful you are; how you seem so oblivious of my admiration for you— but for now, I could only stare at you and drown in the thoughts of not being able to call you mine.

You held my beating heart in your hands.
You felt it undulating, it was pulsing for you.
It was pulsing for me.
You kept it alive.
You kept me alive.
Having you with your stony, stormy eyes, created a life so worth living.
For such short moments in time my heart was yours and yours was mine.
Now,my face vacantly rubicund.
The winter winds lash my visage.
And you.
You lashed my heart.
You tore it into strips of scarlet.
You used your cat'o'nine tails pen.
It bled.
I bled.
Love haemorrhaged, now my love's all dead.
(C) LIVVI

Alexander  K  Opicho
(Eldoret, Kenya; aopicho@yahoo.com)


I had a dream in the wee of the yester-night,
I was sleeping a lone on a reed wick-work of a bed
In my late grandmother’s ruffian thatched hut,
On the bed which she passed on,
On the day of her death,

She had earlier declared the bed a heirloom and memento,
To run among the grand children in her family,
Thus I was a sleep on this bed and began dreaming;

I was in a strange city, I don’t knew it
May be it was Jerusalem or Wales, am not sure,
I was walking on street, ***** and full of garbage,
Each person I met was not concerned with me,
But one woman who showed concern was mad,
She was carrying a grey cat in her arms
She asked me if I were headed to the church,
Before I responded with my awed yes;
She ululated before my eyes in her full feat of madness,
Then a huge building emerged from her red headscarf,
The building swallowed me, inside was maudlin and dull music
Like the one usually sang by christo-pagans
When attending a burial ceremony in Africa,
It was replete with irregular sounds,
Of church! Church! Church!

Riff-raff of human hordes flocked in
All of them looked different from me
Their skin was not smooth, it looked rubicund
Some were laughing, other were making nasal sounds
Not clear to me at all, at all, other made funny shouting sounds;
We are the kingdom of psychopomps, we are psychopompous,
One shot a lightening slap at my cheeks, he snarled at me;
Black discoboli! Jump and fight with our bulls.

I saw two bulls dashing at me; I was at the center of the circle
Formed by my foes, the human oats that came in,
The bulls attacked me with an aim to gore my tummy,
I kicked the bulls with one other kick of a man.

The bulls turned into cats on every kick I threw
Instead of mewing, they went melodramatic,
They began talking to me in Queen’s English,
One  of the cats duped me that; I better **** before we fight further,
I followed command; I pulled out my **** from short my trouser,
I micturated till my bladder was fully empty,
Then I suddenly woke up from sleep,
Only to find out I have terribly wedded by bed.

People think it, a test to institute upon _to be out off their morals rubicund _and therefore comply it to the unyielding duty of others _on pretext dully that they should not be upset at fact , only expiate them alone _the reason of divine patience seldom for their due reverence, but their vulgarity ...
The reason of this fore stated, lays in the fact that : some individuals deliberately crudely hurt others or their surrounding, but rather apprehend in advance how conciliate solicitous the others should reaction in the case of their intentionally perpetrated aggression . facilis descensus avernis, they give no regard .
Therefore if you are lovers, dont fail your partner and make it a point of probing test upon the fondness of her or his love .
If you are parents or children dont say hard words or ill treat you parents or siblings {accordingly to each position } and expect it, better way to cast a look about submission or paid respect to adulthood nor a gabbling sports .
Love needs mutual confidence .
Any little doubt of one side is doubly resented by the other .
The practice of good is well reverenced .
And real love casts off fear and ill apprehension .
So why try to do bad, when you know that it will bring nothing but trouble ?

italic Sundays run with a poisonous doubt

a wronged wash in the what might have been

where we fidget like fleas on a rabbits hide

and verses drafted in the cross stitched sky

cannot disguise the well-practiced curses

with the pre-packed presumption of lilies

and static

abstract amongst the sheets

your limbs offer a confusion of choice

where context is lost

besides the arch and coil

of a tenderised neck

and that secret I shall whisper

into your ear?

two pronouns and a verb

you shall not remember

until the crystalline dew draws you clear

that it might be revealed in the heat of noon

or within the cold puddles of a rubicund swoon

as my fingers fund delight

from your long-drawn frown

I take it that a spray of Sun occults your face,
like watching in a squalid cinema, something a slapstick would
conjure a stylistically dumb image, or the prattle of
bunkum hubbub drowning loudspeakers in plazas.
You know there is a part of you that goes missing
  every time you hear me pass carefully under the care
  of toppled light, and there is a part of me that engages
the dark in this straining mutiny. This is such a troubled time
on the hardline; a martinet on the other cheapened end
of a totaled horizon hollering at gentrified space, eyes sternly
fixed on the mattress, conspicuous in urbane manner, something
shadows bade with hands, lifts up all the ragamuffin days:
   to capture you in such moment, such oneness, of no complication,
like a clean Yamazaki on the house, or a metropolitan district
   augured with rubicund crisscrosses, streets sidereal in measures,
an aggressive ******* at the end of the curb, the spanked curve
   of the mordant asphalt, and the rise of body heat from yesterday’s swelter;
  something only I could have thought of in white thighs of little ladies
    and peering birds for collarbones: look at this, maddened, retaining
    nothing but age.

[Some-a-ways-on-down the line, you stole your way to my sleeping. You took only-pictures, before finally, robbing me of sleep-at-all. So, I guess I don't slip, and fall, in love. It's black, inside my pen, and I can feel it, and use it to write, and run out-of-it. All-empty after-April, and then it's time to steal-another. From work, from a friend, or, from her innocence. Am I making sense, yet?]

Are you with him, [page 12] right now? Am I paranoid, or am I creepy? Am I making you uncomfortable, just by asking? Am I thinking-the-friendship is for-simple, forever? In-the-fire, over foolishly having been buried-in-love, with you? Can I share this without regretting it? I don't regret writing it. Witholding absolutely all respect for what-may-happen-next, for the fiend, the blonde-model I've wished you would call: "Ex." And, all the air in my lungs I've got left, and a small cloud of smoke, and designs for a theft. I'll say, last-way: I love you, I don't regret that I've said it. I just hope, win, or lose, here, you'll text back when you've read it.

[Rolling Studded]

[page 13]
Wrote, in-silver-soaked-December-fourteen,
eyes-rolling, over the
studs, in your wrists.

Now, you be the gunman.
I've felt like the anti-Christ, the whole-way,
from home.

Rust-red, rather 
than blood, rubicund, 
just "read, anything-at-all, to me."

Shoot me with your
right-hand, sterling, and
bid the Devil, "back-down."

A group of fireflies,
With longing for life, very quiet
Spread the light in the darkness of the bamboo garden and say,
We wanted to enlighten the whole world like this-

A group of fireflies,
Illuminated,
The house where the unlucky mother turned off the lamp, without any compensation
Till the sky becomes rubicund, by the dawn-

A group of fireflies,
Forgetting arrogance, gathered under the bench of Dukhai's kitchen
Gathered, and brightened with the light,
Until the fire in the oven is re-ignited.

A group of fireflies,
When the gaps in the Mahogany tree vanishes, tell the full-grown moon to fall into the bushes of Phenymansa,
Said, No problem, you get some rest,
We are here to enlighten the earth.

A group of fireflies,
Woke up on the very first morning of the Ekushey,
Shine by exposing the foot of the Martyr Monument,
And they said, sleep in peace,
We are your eternal guardians.

A group of fireflies,
Stay billions of light years away
Accompanying the stars,
Glow all night long
And, became a witness of the eternity.

An ethical poem
A big crow and a sparrow which had painted itself
in the colour of a big bird to look masterful became friends
Both suffered from a bombastic belief they could
take on the elderly eagle and its brood.
A virtuoso war a million other birds killed who only happened
to be flying on peaceful errands.
The Sahara became rubicund from a distance looked like a carpet
for kings and potentates.  
From Eastern states, vultures came to feed and defend
to get the big crow and the preening sparrow off their territory.
The crow flew home, the sparrow took a bath to look common.
It did not help the sparrow it had done crow´s bidding
was shunned and had to fly from suburban gardens to another
and sleepless sit under a bush.