<I>Moorish Conversation</I>, 1832
By Richard
Howard
(posted
Tuesday, Aug. 13; to be composted Tuesday, Aug. 20)
To hear
"Moorish Conversation , 1832" read by the poet, click here or on the
title.
Don't look now (I said
don't look !)
I'll tell
you when you can look), just lie back
as if we were--well, as
if
we were
talking . Try to behave
as if we were by
ourselves,
that's why I
brought you here in the first place.
The trouble with these
rooftop
refuges--the
one place in Tangier
you can see a touch of
green,
something
alive besides men and camels--
the trouble is, there's
always
a roof
higher than the one you're on,
a man
looking down, watching ...
Why bother getting really
comfortable
if someone's ... In
any
case
I'd never dream of
dragging
my best
Bokhara out here--this old
Ardabil is lovely still,
they never
lose their ... The colors are fixed
by making the camels piss
all over
them, then washing them out
in the canal: harsh
treatment,
you'd think,
but it works--look at me !
All the suppler for the
way
I've been
manhandled, you must admit ...
Now
look: you see what I mean?
That's a man up there,
standing
where he can
... No, not Mustapha! Someone
he's put there to spy
on us.
On
me ! What does it matter to him
whether I'm up here with
you
or one of
the bath-women? He has to
know , that's all, it
affords him
some kind of
gratification (more
than he gets from
anything
he ever does
with me!) ... Try some of this,
she put the rose-petals
in
just this
morning, it tastes really fresh ...
Oh! now I
see: that ... person
is nothing like
Mustapha's
usual
parasites. One thing I do have
is a good memory for
men's
bodies. You must have noticed him:
a sharp-faced foreign
devil
always
lurking somewhere and staring so?
He takes it all in as if
life were
the scene of the crime , even
the pair of us ,
harmless enough
on these
irreproachable hassocks. Look!
I know he's the one,
crouching
with a
notebook in his artful hands:
he's
put us in his picture!
As far as art goes--and
art
such as his
goes far enough for spying:
you don't suppose
Mustapha
sold rights
to the roof?--we incarnate
your typical Tangerine
dalliance.
Can't you just hear the giddy
little screams once he
returns
to his
studio: "My dear, how
positively classical !"
...
Never mind,
he's leaving now. Some more
fresh loukoum ? The
tea's still warm,
and so am I. Do just as
you like.
