Poetry Circus: The Odious Scent of the Spice Road

One way flight to Egypt,
the ticket left in Portland.

One way safe and knowable, the other
way, is not, a place I know.
lost (ticket) left on a seat
    snow storm casts white
    blanketed airplane
    snow plow clears path.  And

     we will be above all day.

Tight.  Coffin, flight all day
and tomorrow we will land
in the Saffron market
and the towers calling the faithful,
                 forward
in the overcrowded streets filled with boiling Arabs,
           Going to Work, day
           by ordinary day, but we
are newly arrived, and smelling
musky Saffron Mullahs,
not Nudists from Kathmandu,
Orange streets in Egypt not Kathmandu.
where pots hold Saffron to be exchanged
for a dollar.  I worry, "How am I going to get back home
                               without a ticket."

Crowded.  We
smell like money newly crisped.
Rare birds,
squawk at us and kids throw fireworks.
Scents
of a place clings to your American Sunglasses,
YOU.
Like Pip in Melvelle's Whale Book
I CRY OUT LOUD.
THIS IS NOT HOME
Orange Monkey.
The color of rust and congress, praying
O' delayed.
Zeus take me-find my way back home.

No ticket home.
And the wind does not blow back to Rome, red-white-
and-orange-painted temples of Egyptian Gods.
1492, blue waves.
swallow Orange colored cups of tea.
and Bedouins continue to run their daily lives,
like yesterday, and the
color orange is painted on the
ticket home,
Hell is hot! But
Stella does not quench my thirst.
White. Red. Blue: marks me.
I can't blend the colors to fade into the Saffron filled
market and left exposed fearing
                    Camus's Arab.

What key?  The
sense of Africa
where Saffron
is sold
in Coptic Jars.