Marrakesh
It is all of these damn flowers, Mohammed
lining the balconies
and gilded promenades,
that remind me of the poems of the rich.
The halcyon truths,
umbrellas and daybooks of meagre love.
Of squires and courteous nights
murmuring the prenuptials of grace.
I remember Marrakesh,
the masks of tourists and opiate moon.
The Grand Soco where the darkness stretches
like animal eyes,
and how we argued Engels
wandering the marketplace
like discovered lands.
I have returned to Paris, its twelfth arrondissement
the whores dancing a mazurka
on wooden tables, the smoke swirling
like a river entering the sea.
Old men sitting in anonymous cafes.
Bookstalls and lovers by the quay,
pleasure boats and the ghosts of Guillaume Apollinaire.
Everyone dressed in black.
And I remember Marrakesh
its waifs and beggars
and illegitimate tourist guides.
The harrowing weather filled with an orphan's dream.
I have seen myself the agony of the naked and dead
the broken vistas of dawn.
The ritual guilt of the housemaster
the drama of baubles and its rattle of prayer.
What has this to do with meaning,
the spectacle of hunger and deathly parade
a thousand poets long.
The highwayman's shameful philanthropy
and the libretto of the executioner's song.
Artists grappling with each new truth
taking shape beneath a Shakespearean sky
its long circumference of night,
one twilight outlasting another.