#tangiers
Bill and I
visited
this old mosque
in Tangiers
Miriam
couldn't come
she was out
shopping with
other dames
what's she like?
Bill asked me
what's who like?
Miriam
she's ok
quite a laugh
I told him
what's she like
in the sack?
he asked me
she's like wine
gets better
each time we
have a go
so I thought
he replied
jealously
we left the
old mosque to
have mint tea
in some small
cafe place
he told me
he tried his
luck on the
plump French girl
but couldn't
understand
her English
well enough
to go far
Miriam
found us there
and showed us
what she'd bought
(haggled for)
and sat down
next to me
Bill went off
in search of
the French girl
just after Miriam
had said she
had seen her
not far off
I watched her
(Miriam)
as she spoke
taking in
the outline
of her bra
through her top
and her eyes
lit up with
excitement
and I wished
we were back
in the tent.
Feb 24, 2016
Feb 24, 2016 at 2:27 AM UTC
The trip from Tangiers
to our base camp
was made in yellow
converted army trucks
probably WW2.
30 of us sat
facing the wind,
faces frozen
in the process.
I thought of life
after death, if there
one and hoped
there was.
When we stopped
at the base camp,
we went in the cafe
at the camp
for coffee or tea
or coke or maybe
something stronger
until our faces unfroze.
Miriam who had sat
next to me in
the seemingly death ride
talked through stiff lips:
that was some ride,
she said,
my hand got
frozen to yours.
I rubbed her hands
with mine;
we sipped
our coffees.
She talked of home
and her parents
and university;
I spoke of music
and Kant,
all the while studying
her small, but neat *******
(which I had see before
but only in the darkness
of our tents).
Who are you
sharing with?
I asked.
Still the quiet girl
I was with, but
she's gone off
the ex-army guy
she told me as he
talked non stop
of his mother
and her new partner
and how he hated him;
who are you with?
She said.
I'm with Bill now
he's ok, good laugh,
I said.
Where's ex army?
She said.
Went off and shared
with someone else,
I said.
After that we went
and found our tents,
separated male from females
by a narrow path.
Have you seen the bogs?
Bill said,
they're just
two bricks
in a walled off area;
the girls won't
like that
standing on
two fecking bricks.
He laughed,
and we unzipped
our tent, and we put
our suitcases in,
and put out
our sleeping bags
and lay down,
looking at the top
of the tent.
And there's fecking
scorpions they say,
and maybe big
fecking spiders,
so if you hear
screams
the girls have
found them,
he said smiling;
they can see
my snake any time.
I later saw Miriam
in the bar
and she moaned
about the bogs too
but the showers
are ok,
she said,
but a bit primitive.
She'd showered,
and was tip-top,
she'd come share,
(if Bill was
not there)
she said,
my tent
and camp bed.
Aug 7, 2016
Aug 7, 2016 at 2:13 AM UTC
They watched
the snake charmer
in Tangiers,
a belly dancer
in some night club
where the *****
was expensive
and the air full of smoke
and noise.
Arriving back at base camp
they went their separate ways,
each to their own tent
which they shared
with another.
She wished it was him
in her tent,
not that other girl
who spoke almost non stop
about this and that.
He lay in his sleeping bag
musing on her.
His friend lay asleep
in the sleeping bag
over the way.
He recalled her excitement
watching the snake charmer
with his pipe blowing
and the snake seemingly
hypnotized moving slow.
He wished she was there
beside him,
kissing and making love,
but she was elsewhere,
not there,
and a sense of frustration
in him and the air.
Mar 4, 2018
Mar 4, 2018 at 3:07 AM UTC