Djinns in the Aleppo Souks

Catch the djinns between the piles of giddy spices
In air shot through with bolts of light
Blasted diagonally through the dust and dark
Into the barter of bargain goods of the Levant
To the haggling crowds of everyday Arab merchants
Muttering, shouting in there, in the labyrinth.   

Anciently concealed in shops and booths in the labyrinth
Blazed with tawny, azure, brown, and golden bright spices
Dealt by commercial domestic merchants
Like their goods veiled from the blistering light
And blinding heat of the shapeshifting Levant
Shuttered cluttered there in the dark

The blasted roof of corrugated tin welds in the dark
Traced with cash threading through the labyrinth
Intersecting algebraic values of the Levant
Mediterranean oil, sea-salt and camel caravanserai spices
Emulsified on counters under jaundiced electric light
By gold like the teeth in hospitable merchants

Accommodating demanding hosts querulous merchants
their eyes…