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