Some Siwa Poetry

I have quite a few Siwa-inspired poems. I think I will have to include a new page on the blog for such at a later date. Once I am back from Siwa ( with more poems inshallah & a new video too). These two pieces of work stretch back to 2008.

Sticks of Pomegranate.

If I could take these sticks

from the raised hands of donkey driving boys

hold them high above the clattering carts

I could meld

into the evening shade

sipping tea from tiny cups.

I wouldn’t have to stir

if I could slip these

entwined

pomegranate sticks

beneath

this slipping ball of flame,

scoop -

its dissolving mass from the fractured sky,

the call to Ishaa would never come

nor- the Matrou bus outside El Sulieman draw.

Waiting for the ATM machine to be fixed.

August 2008. Siwa Oasis.

In this sleepy out of season oasis,

there is no need for hard currency,

few tourists pass this way,

and nobody in their right mind would

haggle a crossing to Bahariyya Oasis.

Beleaguered donkeys collapse in the shade

and locals, slumped undercover

over tiny cups of Liptons,

barter -

gearboxes;

shares of the date harvest;

and schemes to get an off the road 4WD back on the desert track

for the encroaching season -

when currency will babble like the springs of Cleopatra and Fatnas;

fuzzy, grubby, curled old notes

pulled from the pouches of wannabe explorers

received

and folded

into gracious pockets of pristine white gallibayas.