Hot tea steam
dragon licks
kiss of hibiscus
hit of marijuana
tickling the keyboard with reminiscent fingers
dreaming of
tangerine fragrance and five A.M. calls to prayer
sex in
rooftop breakfast
a scorching orange sun in the October morning,
almonds and yogart,
two Spaniards who traveled with my wife and I
smiling,
also in love
cramped roads, old Bill Burroughs’s haunt, Café Central
this was Paul Bowles territory
a place of homosexual ghosts clinging to art and inheritance
coffee smells, cigarette smoke around every turn
a clutter of children selling hash, silk and paprika
in crimson djellaba and bright green dashiki
capped with bleach white kufis
little Sufis with fez cap and hula-hoop mysticism
The shops all closed down during the call to prayer
it was the first day of Ramadan
a strange time to be in a Muslim land
crossing the Mediterranean from Tarifa
by high speed ferry
twenty five minutes from port to port
with incredible sea sickness and no time for scurvy
We weren’t pirates or drug smugglers,
but tourists
glimpsing into the brief window of their existence
A man sewed clothes in a 4x5ft room
stuffed with fabrics,
a chair for him to sit and a table for his machine
a lone bulb hung from a cord above his head
illuminating him with yellow green gravy
a specter of nicotine skin
qur’anic concentration
clean thoughts
he turned
his face a holy skull of infinite bliss
wisdom of the despaired
and turned back to his prayer of work
We drank with fat bellied developers in expensive suits
on hotel rooftops, poolside as the evening cooled
everyone spoke English and the talk was of rape and pillage
in the distance a McDonald’s sign
tattooed the mosque rich mountainside
a horrible red and yellow
flames of the corporate plague
that will gobble up every last consumer
We did not rock the Kasbah
but the ocean pounded inky black
on the strange midnight rocks
salty and secretive
rusting the old cannons
that waited for no new targets
We tip toed around the wondrous city
in search of no answer
only the air – the sweetness and the sourness
of the reality
as fifty sweaty men smoked over coffee
and stared silent at our wives when we passed
the testosterone box of fluorescent apes
in wild beard and sandy nails
a cheap and wonderful hotel room
a fast and accurate taxi ride
“We love
but we love
the young men yelled happily at us
as they tried to help us put our simple overnight bags
in the back of a taxi
for a quarter tip or dollar tip
whatever I do not know.
I hurried into the taxi, trusting no one.
We sped off for the ferry
and caught an afternoon boat back to
the sea was calm and blue, as was the sky
we sat in the back of the boat and watched
vanish.
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