Dirt

Block

Wood

Basic definition

Plus space always between

As a boy always inviting

The dogs liked it

Spiders liked it

I liked it

I could see feet come and go

Hear the car doors slam

Someone asking ,Where's Tom run off to ?"

That day ,

The fight inside spilled out

Angry steps  

Yells and screams

Shouts

The sound of fists hitting flesh

Breaking bones

You crumpled to the ground

Vacant eyes staring at me

But you couldn't see

Blood began running

Hands picking you up

I could hear you

Bouncing on the back seat

The door slammed

Another opened

"Slam"

The car roared angrily

Gravel flung everywhere

Dust settled

All's quite

Did I tell you

It's cool under there ?

I crossed life
On camelback,
Halting punctually
By the track
To sleep, forget,
And feed
On what was placed
On my steed:
Sun-dried language
For me
And the fruit,
For those
I crossed
On my route.

(c) LazharBouazzi

pale clouds at the summit
water color sky
cattle guard at wood bridge
creek bed running dry

split log fence downtrodden
razor back in wire
sinkhole on the wild plain
grouse fields under fire

pine bug and a lone wolf
clear cut on the trail
stump lake on the open range
kettle valley rail

raven on the hatheume
slash and burn and scar
blasted church in a tired sun
wild rose under char

thistle in the hollow
quails nest sitting high
carriage house at lone rock
curtains of july

smoke jaw in the canyon
percolator dream
silver sage in chapel
schneider's requiem

stockmen on the wrangle
big horn antler chase
table top at sunset
deacon creek in grace

quarry in a furry
lines of tinted red
spurs and blades and columns
patchwork of the dead

past the bow hill junction
cattle ropes are black
indian amphitheater
saddle on the rack

sun is at a high bake
sedimentary stone
three days on the morphine
skeleton and bone

cold water road is lonely
corrals are cut and paste
gone but not forgotten
the dust filled aftertaste

The Agèd Hands of Time have reached yet another
toll of the bell.

12 years have passed since I’ve last seen her in this life.
Distance and sickness in our being had robbed us both
of streams of time which passed like a long cold winter
into her death. These lost memories often create over-
exposed and superimposed photo negatives of imaginary
frames of time I desperately imprint to hold tightly in my
heart and mind.

But I still hold tightly in memory to her soft voice on the
phone and pictures of split second frames of physical
time my sister would send me. Many people don’t even
have that.

In this life she loved to mother her three grown children
and flower garden as near as
she could to the end. It was
in her nature to nurture us--
her perennial children--
and to help make the move easier for her literal annual foster children plants taken
from a confined potted existence to a deep soft warm bed of comfort.

Stamped on my mind is not the faded and worn, bruised
and torn image of her outward shell in the Trauma
Center at age 88, but the indelible inner and outward
image at age 38: a lovely young mama who tucked her
little boy in bed every night with a song and a prayer.
The little boy that is still alive in this man.

The Agèd Hands of Time have reached yet another
toll of the bell.

I'm tasting sugar on my eyelids
Syrup on my irises
Sour on my heartstrings
Bitter in my arteries
But we are more than corporeal
Meant to fly
And cross the boundaries
Transcend the frames of nature’s canvas
Spill our colors farther than the physical
We invent what we do not discover
The horizons and the realms of our future
And I am just like you
A mess of senses that
perception blends into

You can
Walk on love
Like you walk on water
You can break a heart
Like you change the weather

You can go the extra mile
You can drive a Studebaker
Blow all the tires out
Curse you maker

You can
Say I love you
You can say I hate you
You can never say enough
When life gets really really rough

So when you learn to walk on water
When you learn you can't love one
And then another
When you live up to all your lows
put down all your highs
you can let me know

Open the window in my heart to
Epic pleasure, pain, despair
Those highs pass away, same as the lows
I’m in this journey aware

The Truth when lies are all the rage
That sweet slice of life we seek
Something for sure to depend on
Inherited by the meek

Perhaps I try to get used to it
Those troubles we’re forced to face
Be still, listen, turn off the device
Hear what’s missing, have a taste

I digress from offering Hope
Maybe Hope already dashed
Pulling us all back from the edge
Defending a life that crashed

I strive to take it all in stride
Troubles push me off course
I weep and laugh-loud as I can
The lesson is the source

I saw a girl in a wheelchair on her porch
and wasps were swarming in the cornice

She had just washed her hair
taken it down and combed it

She could see
just like me

That one star under the rafter
shining like a knife in the creek

She was thin as the hereafter
and made me think

Of music singing to itself
like someone putting a violin in a case

And walking off with a stranger
to lie down and drink in the dark by the lake.