At The Casbah - Tanger

I was walking through the gates of the Casbah in Tanger, and I told the guy in the tunic, the Moroccan, to take a picture of me, and he did

I sat back on the steps, leaning back towards a building, it was adjacent to the gate entrance, and the camera snapped, the picture taken

And during this simple process many things went through my mind

“…smells of dust…empty boxes…the dead, the surplus…”

“Here is your camera,” said the Moroccan (with the long tunic). He extended his hand out (camera in it), but I was immobilized for the moment, couldn’t, and wouldn’t take it.

“A harrowing cry pierced the darkness, I blinked my eyes, and anti-Jews waved their banners”

“Flight to Denmark,” I hadn’t been there yet.

“The judges had forgotten to read… (just sentenced them, one after the other)”

“The Lion in a Zoo,” (‘The prince is caged’).

“Take your camera,” the man in the tunic said. I tired to speak (and hurry up my mind processing, but it was only ten-seconds, he could wait, my mind said).

“Happiness Bastard”

“Mad mind Rocket accelerated”
(why does he look at me like that…?)

“…hell with it.”

“Oh yeah,” I said, meaning I know you’re holding the camera, with a smile…

“515 Madison Ave,” come to mind.

“Door to heaven? Portal,” also.

“A Negro driver tells me about $120 apartment (years ago in Frisco)

He thinks I’m having withdrawals, I bet. Get up and take the camera, idiot. Casbah smells, dusty, boxes, the dead, I was once in Mexico City; in a coffeehouse someplace in Honduras.

“The search for ecstasy is a natural thirst…”

“… (I want to) lie around like a lizard.”

I bet that guy has a blade of steel under those cloths: robes, tunic—whatever…!

“Now everyone is acting”

“HA—HA”

“They look Trojan.”

They sound like “A Laughing record”; talking about me—why I’m slow in taking my camera back (I believe), “…one by one they disembark,” (I say to myself—my camera is going; he has two friends).

I don’t know, “God’s in His Heaven creating Earth—when He gets down here He’s going to raise Hell.” He drops my camera on the ground, doesn’t’ even turn about to look at my expression, but he’s walking, talking, saying something.

I smell coffee, but I want a coke, I’m at a café with two Spanish Doctors, a few other folks from a tour in Spain: I snuck away (they followed me) five of my friends from the tour bus, and we navigated over to Tanger.

“I think I’ll buy the rug, the little one,” I said to the owner.

Someone just asked, now sitting down cozy all five of us, asked, as I’m drinking my coke, asked:

“What are you thinking?”

“About buying the rug,” I say, adding, “—and a man I met at the gate an hour ago, we only met for a few seconds, but he left a lasting impression, on me.”