YOUSSEF ALAOUI

Flies of Sidi-Haracem

Scat, you flies of Sidi-Haracem!

You brazen hags twirling idly in mid-air

lusting after rotted carrion fruits

finding only the flaky bones of my intentions

hurled over the rocky cliffs of your promises.  

Scores of flies teem my windowsill horizon

clouding the walls and carrying away my memory

picking the teeth of my bedsprings

scouring the floors I stand on. 

Lift me now you trash eaters and thunder bugs!

Scoop me under a floating black puddle of your rickety bodies

all clinging and bumbling under the stress of your efforts.

Clean me if you must in your damnable fashion

lick me and dissolve me but get me out of this prison. 

The oilyards here billow death into the sky.

The railroads drill disease into our countryside.

The chemical plants crystallize the water they straddle

forcing it to crumble under its own weight

and the rivers are piling outside my window. 

My stale sandwich gives you reason enough to breed.

My cell is a just carcass to house your young

writhing away in blind squirming piles, and like they are,

I am losing patience to be born into the rubble of the future 

dying to live under the rotted umbrella of your city

killing away the mass of your progress

and within the currents of foul air that suspend us

obliterating your rosy measure of solution 

overriding your tact and cunning

all dripping in finery and precision

abhorring any answers

rejecting solid builders.

We are the flies of Sidi-Haracem.