Three Poems
Neil Macbeath, Oman
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Expatriate Concerns
January 30 – 2006
Graduation – Herriot-Watt University; 2008
If you’re going to Bahrain,
You should go to the Blue Elephant!
The speaker comes briefly to life,
Incisor teeth moist, jowls aquiver,
An oversized,
hungry
rabbit
Spotting a succulent carrot.
I am going to Dilmun,
The Isle of the Dead,
Where Enki the Water God
Floats in his spring;
And the burial mounds of Saar
Hug their melancholy secrets.
But DON”T!
(heavy emphasis)
Order a starter;
DON”T!
(repetition)
order a starter. !
They bring one anyway. !
I am going to Tylos,
Reconnoitered by Nearchus of Crete,
Admiral of the Divine Alexander,
Where the trade is pearls,
Spices and fabrics.
And DON”T ask for the wine list.
At the Blue Elephant
Ask for the HOUSE WINE.
I am going to Bahrain,
To sit cross-legged
With Mohammed in Riffa.
We will talk about his children,
Swap news from the Gulf,
Sip small glasses of tea…..
The house wine.
These days,
When the sun rises out of the sea,
Leapfrogging Bahrain,
It shines waterily
through the mist
Onto this bitter coast.
The morning star still hangs,
A solitary diamond,
In the brightening sky,
As I walk to breakfast in another mess.
But I recall,
with regret,
The grey hills of Ghallah;
Shouldering their way,
Like playful elephants,
Past Baushar
and down to
Muscat.
And the morning star that hung in the sky
That morning
when the dream
turned sour.
Sunshine streams down from the Pentland Hills,
Lighting the eddies of graduands and guest.
This is a celebration of education
On an industrial scale.
Three performances
Reduce
Four years of study
To
A walk across a stage,
neel,
rise
Accept the degree in its cardboard cylinder
Leave.
Inevitably,
There is an anti-climax.
The guests are suitably proud;
Some of the men wear highland dress –
Attempting a sense of occasion;
Most of the girls wear seriously high heel,
But…
A loan piper does not make a band.
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