All entries for Monday 26 December 2005

Sequence poem part IV

Follow-up to Sequence poem part III from Into the Flame

Here's another rough draft for you, comments very welcome.

IV

Jom'e Bazaar
(Friday Market)

cirlcing like beweildered magpie, unsure
in which direction to begin looking: shoppers are surrounded by
gold, silver, jade, emerald, royal red, quileted together

in the corridors of the jom'e bazaar; there are
reels of the finest fabric, fit for a sultan's bride,
and the glint of jewelery relfects in the pupils of many

stall owners and shoppers alike. everyone
has one eye on their hand-bag and the other on the next
potential bargain, each person weighing their neighbour

against the demand and haggle for every treasure:
piles of sequinned slippers, heaps of silver pendants, sprawling
veils that waver in the breeze and beckon,

they are impossible to ignore. the tired expressions
of merchants sat upon their laden sheets, go unnoticed as we
shove cheap notes into their chapped hands and move on.

__

Yesterday in Tehran there was a bus strike. The bus drivers here are tired of their long hours and extremely low wages so they resorted to protest. The interesting part for me was that they did not stop work; instead, they drove through the streets of Tehran refusing pick up the queues of people waiting for a ride in the pouring rain. The strike had not been sufficiently publicised and there were thousands who had no idea there were no bus services available. The buses would stop on busy street corners, displaying their empty seats through rain-blurred windows, and waiting bus users stood in the middle of main roads to block traffic and delay the rush hour. The bus drivers deliberately paraded their empty carriages in order to anger people so that they would create enough fuss for the people who need to be listening to hear. The people in chare don't care if there are no buses, they have their private cars and like the extra budget pocket money, but hopefully they'll start to care if/when people start smashing bus windows in frustration and block traffic to agrivate the horrendous traffic situation here…what will it take for them to listen?

: 26 Dec 2005 12:07 |  Tags: Poetry Travel |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem