YOUSSEF ALAOUI

TO THE LIGHTS OF B’WAY,

SUMMER OF HELL 2003

In the summer of 2003, a few power stations fell offline in the Northeast U.S.  Manhattan was without power.  Many citizens slept in the streets.  In Paris, people died in their apartments, of heat exhaustion. 

Because Lord I love thy crystal lights

and glad they blind me, gazing upon em.

Signals for all their flaxen luster

of Pure Identity, which I seek, and so cherish. 

Were these brazen gems to lose their flash,

t'would mean the very edge

of Destiny’s fabric had lost its weave

to leave me smothered in the wake of Annihilation. 

Because Lord, I am not Parisian. 

Paris, screaming, beneath the blighted rump

of a Demon ape forged of flame itself,

pleads to Her rivers for help

and squanders Her most Sainted hands 

As humble bargaining chips

for the knotted fist of Abraxas.

Those who remain pray it is enough

while their Pope hunkers, rummaging for clouds.