Ode to Narouz

*A poem inspired by Lawrence Durrell's The Alexandria Quartet. A work remarkable if only for its masterly portrayal of the true desert heart and, in particular, of the Hosnani brothers in Mountolive. __________________________

Whip in hand, Narouz speaks and bats lie split at his feet:

to a brother's glib oily bitch, a whip! and an old desert queen -true hearts-

Sand and eye's clutching vision, inter- twined, slink like Suras -in desert light!-

Linking palms of lovers also split, lying dead like bats - at his feet-