This poem is taken from PN Review 238, Volume 44 Number 2, November - December 2017.
Gold Rush
Arrivals Hall, Jeddah, 1976
Wool suit and cotton kameez
jostle on luggage mountains
for their Samsonites, Louis Vuittons,
string-bound cardboard cartons,
like rag-pickers on a dump.
At their feet, russet fellahin
from the Horn, or huts in Yemen,
bare-toed in sandals and soiled thobes,
add to the piles from L1011s.
In the scrum, six centuries elide;
Huntsman and hajji,
Bell Labs and prayer rug collide.
Prospecting
Chancers swarmed over Saudi
like locusts across oases,
...
Wool suit and cotton kameez
jostle on luggage mountains
for their Samsonites, Louis Vuittons,
string-bound cardboard cartons,
like rag-pickers on a dump.
At their feet, russet fellahin
from the Horn, or huts in Yemen,
bare-toed in sandals and soiled thobes,
add to the piles from L1011s.
In the scrum, six centuries elide;
Huntsman and hajji,
Bell Labs and prayer rug collide.
Prospecting
Chancers swarmed over Saudi
like locusts across oases,
...
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