De'Nile

I lived in Egypt for 3 years. They were some of the most amazing years of my life. I wrote this as a series of impressions of the environment. Enjoy!

I'm drowning in dry Cairo.

Sweat is the only rain here,

Evaporating into salty air,

Producing salty bitter words,

Shouted by salty men.

Yelling like seadogs, barking roughly.

 

I'm drowning in dry Cairo.

Women covered up like political scandals

Draped in black curtains, waddling about.

Unscathed by barking seadogs.

 

Dry Cairo.

Smells of antiquity,

Like God's attic must.

Musty dust, rosy sand

Blowing aimlessly

Rattled by sienna winds.

 

Cairo

Chaos here, mosque there.

Pentagonal sing-song right on time,

Calling the barking seadogs up to

God's attic.

I wish I could go too.

 

Dry Cairo.

Floating like well written prose

On the dank, dirty Nile.

Stare at the moon while

One thousand years of dirty laundry

Invades your nose.

I never knew the moon could be so smelly.

 

Drowning in dry Cairo.

Lambs bleating, bargains, trash, stray cats.

Little boys on braying donkeys,

Clucking at the human herd.

 

My heart in dry Cairo.

Mars for all I know,

With the red sand and alien tongue.

Beauty and pain, but never rain.