Monday, August 1, 2011

Youssef Alaoui-Fdili - One Poem

Pointed—That Beam of Light

That beam of light upon your face
reveals the blush of summer gone from it.
And now, treatment for a reflective era:

Evening.
She creeps over the trees
and valleys on multiple legs
of brittle iron poles.

An expanding barracks
not fluttering
but oozing in mile-high wafts
and we are pointed toward her
hurtling into the East.

Emerging evening;
a cold blanket with rusted edges,
replacing daylight
with a fickle promise of dreams.

Instead,
she fills the sleeping gulf
with ideas of living acts
never committed, never actualized,
hardly remembered.

Finally alone,
this is the river we speak to—
Grey, broad, shallow, leafless, birds leaving it,
and bridged.
An expanse best fled from.
A kept secret. A mute response.

And then above,
the sirens spiral around it.
Just beyond the periphery
lies your rock island,
a glowing carnelian outpost.
The final gateway into spring.



Youssef Alaoui-Fdili is a Moroccan-American Latino. His family and heritage are an endless source of inspiration for his varied, dark, spiritual and carnal writings. He has an MFA in Poetics from New College of California. His poems have appeared in Exquisite Corpse, a Swiss publication called Poems Niederngasse, Stark Raving Normal, Oakland’s Literary Zine Tea Party, the New Times of San Luis Obispo and San Francisco’s Cherry Bleeds. He is also a founding member of the East Bay writers group “9st.”

1 comment:

  1. Greatly enjoyed your poem, Youssef. Beautifully crafted, love the sparseness, word combinations, and imagery.

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