Above the gentle rumble of 114’s motor
There’s the low holla-and-walla of
Internationals making deals and promises.
Sandy squares of Creek-side villas bob by
Shaded by grand yachts
Of the super rich.
Our 1-Dirham dinghy chugs
Slopping to moorings
Crowded with all of those faces of Earth.
Too loud and close
A colossal dhow blazes
Beaming phone-lights and faces…
In it’s wake our disembarkation
Is a hoppy affair
Scuffed sandals and ruffled kandura’s
My daughter’s dolls have got no clothes
I’m trying not to freak
And when I ask her why
She smiles
and makes the wretches speak
I do not like the clothes I have
They really ain’t for me
OK I say to placate her (them?)
Yet she continues this ventriloquy
It’s all the pink and gold she pines
I don’t like it never have
It’s what they sell in the shops I share
Well they should sell more choice – she says – Daaaaad!
but it’s not their fault!
Animated droids
steeling the screen
with silver-tongued tales
rattle at minds…
To furnish the soul?
A hundred times and more a day
A thousand radio waves
are beamed
To a million open eyes
Each simply charmed by charming ways!
David says all information
is great for building a common nation.
So he’s pleased to see this fairy notion,
is backed by newsreel allegations:
That ministers’ – leading the restoration –
weigh heavy in fear
of mass publication!
So gleefully mass ignorance
is fed and bloated by conglomerates
Sealed with affection
by celebrity
and cooked – till black
then hid away!
On the streets,
on these sleepy streets
Chat is rife with the tales they tell
our TV’s, monitors, papers are full
of well written tales –
They tell them so well.
