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.
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