Saffron and White Sugar

Tehran’s smog crept inside my lungs,
pressed like lead on my chest. Well-meant
intentions; suffocating, nonetheless. A man –
bent over a heavy load – yells, ‘Ya-Allah,
‘Ya-Allah’, which, strictly translated, meant,
‘Oh, God, Oh God’, but colloquially,
‘Get the fuck out of my way!’

Approaching the hotel from the airport,
my orange taxi carving a path – horn
blasting, through chaotic traffic, nigh on
mows down a beggar, sat in the dirt –
hand outstretched, looking up, with white,
sightless eyes, as three women pass by
draped in black chadors.

Hotel Imperial, situated in any other city
would have been ripe for demolition;
my room, overlooking Takhte Jamshid,
with a toilet, but no seat; when flushed
treats me to an overture of gurgling – puts
to shame, Tchaikovsky’s Eighteen-Twelve...
topped by a cadenza as the cistern refills.

Two youths squat to relieve themselves
against a muddy wall, while trails of urine
run into the jube – nothing more than
an open sewer; stagnant, stale and stinking...
where I collapse. A slice of water-melon
and Coke with ice, nearly robs me of my life;
refuses to give it back, till I get home.

High summer, circa nineteen-sixty-seven –
man’s thirst, insatiable, for that lucrative
‘black gold’, when Tehran begged me
not to leave; strew sweet smelling spices
at my feet, hung silver round my neck
as a penance. Assured me it would mend
its ways...should I ever come back.