Desert swallows not her pride,
but swallows the hoofs of vagrants.

It is recorded among earthly plagues –
untold hardship unleashed on restless limbs –
maggots' relative revelry.

Sojourners' sun dims.
Altar swelters on the grits of dunes
polished by racing winds.
Pulse and beats elated towards elusive horizon,
retreating-bright.

This column of beings towards stretched dusk,
a dispersed flock of oasis pilgrims.
Rage and futile greenery scorch the presence of
heathen thirst –
how with the killing lustre of a boiling palace?

Urine, chaliced and priced, runs the
errands of endless tube-channelling.

Yonder, laughter in the face of the sun
retreats Europe.

O' Plague, Desert Plague,
Ishmael is haunted.
Assegais aloft; thirst-pointed, for this
cadaver . . . hold!

Hagar is at the fringes.

Night, and the moon bears witness to
this frazzled journey, this leap
to madness, of seasonless pilgrimages to
European quarters from burning homes.