The old cold port walls protecting the bay
in the Mediterranean south-west
esplanade windows of Franco-Oran
with balcony flowers open in May
restaurant seafront where families take
platter of fried fish, crisp baguette, gazouze
but for the many with no means to pay,
just a poor backstreet, where young footballers play
interior farms of tired anguished wheat
brush grazing hard Tell hills of the sparse grass where
men, sheep and donkey take from the well thirsty
in the dusty mono-therm weather
almond and fig trees ripe, with full-fruit
micro flowers paint the edge of the way
through the border where desert and farm meet,
where arable land beginning to retreat
High parching plateaux winds blow on unrelenting
bleak roaming sheep raw chewing
by lone freight trains that sifflantingly bore
by the cold mountain range of ice purple
cheap weekly market in small dusty town,
choking air sandstorms of uniform haze
Gendarmerie post, machine guns that glow,
the new lycee mixte where old children go
pinched up in winter, chilled to the bone
Naama wilaya government office
pink, orange, brown sand, then Ain Sefra junction
an unmoving landscape of bleaching wind whining
monotone coloured igneous rock
abandoned by man, a geology exhibit
wrought iron rail bridge, blank
empty pill box waiting in rank.
Coal reserves finished, hot Béchar mining gone
in fly dry, sun-baking dust blown aridity
broken rust skeletons hugging the floor
full tank of petrol for road to Adrar
where a few weary taxis wait in the centre
hemisphere fresco hand crafted with care
Porte du Sahara, waiting for whom…
petrified forest chunks laying in an open room
Erg Occidental, bare dunes shifting with going
in the wide wadi floor, thick date palms grow
in foliage beds, glistening
blocks on the sheer wall reach high out to pray
they move on slowly to the apex where,
on smooth rough rocks kissed by weathering
a long gone culture is kept on, kept near
painting by men-folk who once came through here
