Camas Nan Gaell

The wee beige-bummed mongrel
patters past the Pizza-Palace,
pauses to pee
on a polystyrene carton,
pauses to sniff
at his balls,
then barrels-off across the road
doggedly,
taking the corner with a frivolous flounce
of a furbelow tail.
Dissonant in the distance,
the jingle jangle jolly
of an ice-cream van
clamouring through concrete,
clattering past the cordon
of a row of flats,
cutting
like a cutlass,
like a klaxon,
like the curdling colic grizzle
of a crying child.

Someone’s growing rhubarb in a garden,
a hooded boy takes pot-shots with a sling.
The textile shop has a half-price sale,
a carpenter splits his thumb on a nail
and the girl in the sauna
removes her wedding ring.

The wee beige-bummed mongrel
pooters past the Peking Palace,
pauses to poke
at a pile of paper wrappings,
pauses to lick
at his ar se,
then skittles-off across the street
snappily,
skirting a skoda with a fabulous flick
of a palatine paw.
Dubious in the distance
the piercing palilalia
of an ambulance
sheering through the city,
sanguiferous, saccadic
on a hill of bones,
scything
as a sickle,
as a scalpel,
as the howling scarlatina
of a dying child.

They will taste it, they will sniff it out and track it for a million miles,
hanging from the decks like bunting,
not yet drooped by Egypt’s fire, as she steams into port,
seeping with rice and cotton.
As they troop down, as they skip the plank and plunder from a thousand stalls,
milling on the quay like scarabs,
not yet scorched by heaven’s ash, dropping softly to red
dust on the brass and copper;
they will suck it up
and swallow from a hundred pots,
bellied in the bars like bladders, too soon felled by Isis’ breath,
the gurning of mouths
bloated on desert corpses.

Lids tacked hard with grit, beneath a rock, crawling
further in, away, hid.
Green baked brown and leathered tongue too tired
to flick at flies
beating on the ochre crust.

Still they court it, still they sniff it out and track it for a million miles,
flapping round the bus like ibis,
not yet sagged by Luxor’s flame, as it rumbles to town,
dripping sweat and luggage.
As they lunge down, as they clear the steps and posture for a thousand snaps,
kicking through the sand like camels,
not yet seared by Hades’ squall, smearing swiftly to black
loam on the polished lenses;
they will gormandize,
engorging from a hundred pots,
swaying in the souks like serpents, too late touched by Ra’s design,
the falcon’s cruel bill
sticky with sun-tan lotion.

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