Agadir
Agadir
As a child I remember
the terrible news.
Agadir destroyed.
Fifteen thousand dead
in fifteen seconds.
An earthquake
tore the town apart
and consumed it.
Forty six years later
I visit on holiday.
There is nothing
to talk about
other than the earthquake,
the heat, and sardines.
Fat, pink travellers
hustled in a smelly souk.
Fifteen thousand ghosts
mingle in the beach bar
glad they are dead.
A single toothed old man
sending a six year old
to collect cash from tourists
to photograph his camel,
shows empty black
eyes beneath his raggy turban.
Tearing earth ripped a hard
working fishing town apart.
and in the scar grew sunbeds.
Malcolm Saunders
Thu 20th Dec 2007 13:50
Thanks everybody. I came to Belfast for a week in the early seventies and it was not a pretty sight. A year or two a go my wife and I spent three weeks touring Ireland north and south. Belfast, Dublin and the rest of the island were all charming, lively and welcoming.
Thirty years ago I heard twisted garbage from all sides when the 'troubles' were interpreted through a range of different bigotries and hatreds. Let us hope that the prospects of growing peace and prosperity are not knocked off course by new objects of contempt. Passionate Irish peopple have a capacity for great art, love and creativity. When they choose to be negative, they can be vile. Here's to a positive future, building on a pleasant present.