Strangers All by Sharif Elmusa
In this tiny whim of a country
windfall from the guts of the desert,
the nomads have settled in villas,
the camel on the race track is spurred by a robot,
another all-knowing robot, an iZarathustra,
sermonises the crowds in the souq,
the gigantic chandelier enters the Guinness Book of Records,
and the flame in the fireplace emanates from a projector—
such stuff as can happen when you compose
a surrealist poem, or luck grants you
a night’s access to a magic lantern.
Who needs the real
when the mall corrals all—
a canal, a motorised gondola,
steered by a Thai gondolier;
corrals an ice rink and a ski slope—
the icing on the post-Bedouin cake.
Who needs the real
when all are corralled in the mall,
getting hold of the world
without touching it.
The desert is a city on wheels.
In the SUVs the young feel free.
They brandish their white dishdashe,
and charge, like shooting stars, edging out
the cars of the hired pantaloons
who raze the past, sow confusion,
who mark the wrong exits
to the precincts of happiness—
a clash without conclusion; they meet again,
and again, at the roundabout,
roundabout.
I live in a compound,
within walls within more walls,
my estrangement compounded.
I can go only inside myself, into the maze
of the hippocampus, which is like going
inside a pyramid, and finding the robbers
had carted away the belongings.
What will I shed this round
to complete my portable absence?
Strangers all, we pass one another, like turtles,
each in a house of his own words,
each singing his distant song.
No stories to recount at day’s end,
there is only conjecture.
The heart itself is a dry well,
a few drops of love
can rally its chambers. Art by Andrey Surnov
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