Sahara Poem by Niko Tiliopoulos

In a Roman agora
I once bought felicity
for thirty-eight camels
and an ounce of salt.

And my oracular destiny wove
the silks of the oasis merchants,
a sacred seal on the chakras of Arabia
placed on the night-lit stones of Thebes,
the scarlet chant of the mystics
meandering on the glyphs of the temple keepers,
an engraved whisper on lunar amulets.

But the desert’s tempest was a mirage,
mesmerising the cobra’s raqs sharqi,
a blot of scorpion’s poison,
ancient like cursed sand
on the wind-worn sandals of the Bedouins
sleeping their tea-leaves
beneath the scars of the tropic of Cancer.

In a Roman agora
I once sold felicity
for thirty-eight camels
and an ounce of salt.