Ode to Muezzins
Muezzins used to climb the minaret to make the call to prayer…
(after Stefan Kaegi)
Oh to be on call five times daily
and feat days
ready to roll
cocksure in your three-balled
alabaster minaret outpost
honeyed and hyssoped throat
nose to the windscreen
positioned just so
between your faith
and a vintage Shure 55SW anodyne mic
an array of Electrovoice P.A. horns
aimed in reminder
or threat
down the cascading alleys
and nouveau riche boulevards
Call to Prayer
through sleep
if you can call it that
or the latency of jetlag
through sunrise spidering its way
over riven parapets
through cul-de-sac curlicue
and chilled warrens
Bab El Menzah to Bab Doukkala
the minaret blare
the loudspeaker ricochet
the Most Merciful’s
heaven to earth dispatch
the muezzin
Allah’s play by play man
hastening the faithful
and those with no choice
Allahu Akbar
God is the greatest
Praise the Most Merciful
Allahu Akbar
Praise he of 99 names
The Bestower
The Boundless
The Majestic
And so on and so forth
and so be it
dear infidel
Ferocity
in expert grandfathers
in apprenticed youngsters
from burkaed women
through gauzy and layered removal
and slitted you are not our kind
stares
beamed from just shut doors
from turn to face the wall
from huddle tighter
against my perusal
my contamination
in the cheek sough
and jowly grimace
the phlegmy disdain
and ancient gnashing
the rasping refusals to cede
anything
in the no room for the likes of you
adamant trot
stay their intended course
through the saturated souk
or walking just the two of us
in a sea of tarmac nothing
empty streets
