Saturday, July 8, 2017

Kit Kelen #551 - Marrakech and Mogador (Essaouira) and back again



551
Marrakech and Mogador (Essaouira)
and back again

just three hours drive from the 44°inferno
to the earthly paradise

'just take a look, it costs nothing'
and
'go this way', they direct
knowing full well that time is money
and especially to the tannery
where we know what you'll become

the souk is a maze you will never get out of
might as well open a shop yourself
and better be bitter with it, let's cheat

across a little desert come
by way of the argan country
to Mogador
the beach through the streets

as gull upon a breeze, all come
and settle here, grow fat
each to her/his opportune crumb

here you wish a way into a treasure cave
come out all adorned
or you might sit and jam for hours
in a Gnaoua trance

you think of giving up your erstwhile worldliness
for this version … and you price the flats

but you know you have a ticket
and a ticket after that
and in the end the heart sinks, returning
to Marrakesh, where in the Jemaa el-Fnaa Square,
though there are today only snake charmers, monkey torturers,
waterers-down of good juice, spruikers for over-priced restaurants
and every kind of shabby unnecessary souvenir,
it's really not so hard to imagine the weekly slave market
and the beheadings that were the main entertainment
for the best part of the millennium just passed

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