A Night in the Desert
A poem by Frank Joussen

A Night in the Desert

After the dune bashing, coffee drinking, belly dancing
all the lights were turned off,
the touristy noises stopped,
only the goats and the dromedaries could be heard.

Lying on my left side in the sleeping bag
the always open entrance of the Bedouin tent
formed a shape that sometimes looked
like the ship I had come from,
sometimes looked like
the shoe I had got full of sand,
sometimes looked like
a dagger I could stab the night inside me with.

But the sand outside
always formed the same perfect pattern:
broad, wavelike, ascending stairs
lit by the veiled or unveiled light
of the full moon,
ending in a pyramid-shaped mountain
that crowned the desert camp.

Thanks to the pictures and the friendly strangers
one night in the desert
let me forget ‘The Parable of the Modern Man’
and believe in the existence of an oasis.

About the Author:

Frank Joussen is a German teacher and writer. His publications include two selections of his poetry, one of them a bilingual collaboration with Romanian poet Ana Cicio. He has co-edited two anthologies of poetry/fiction in India. His poems and short stories have been published in literary magazines and anthologies in G.B., Australia, the Republic of Ireland, Germany, Romania, Malta, the U.S.A., Canada, India, Thailand and Japan.

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