Down in the bazaar of the Cobblers
Where the stitcher of shoes doth lie,
Was the Haschish den of Kaleef,
A dog with an evil eye.
His body was round and fattened
Like a sow that had taken its fill
His eyes were full and watery,
With hands that could grasp and kill.
‘Twas at the hour of sunset
While the Faithful were at prayer,
To the Haschish hell of Kaleef,
Came a stranger and entered there.
He was young by the grace of Allah
Tho’ his hair was touched with grey,
And his frame so bent and shaken,
Told the curse of the smoke held sway.
Kaleef had seen him enter,
And knew him for easy prey,
Then he bade one dark-eyed houri
Place a stem in his teeth straightway.
The stranger sat for a moment
And sucked as a babe at play,
Then his bloodlit eyes rolled upwards
And he cursed like a beast at bay!
“Give me more you dark-eyed she-cat!”
He cried to the houri by,
“For the vision and peace are departed,
Give me more, more, or I die!”
Now Kaleef had taken a maiden
Whose skin was as white as the snow,
And forced her to stay in his hell-house,
Though she pleaded in vain to go.
He forced her to dance for his pleasure,
And henna’d her fingers and toes,
Then when she would not he lashed her
With cruel unmerciful blows!
Now on this night in his smoke den,
While the music and scents arose,
He commanded the maid to strip naked,
And dance for his friends and his foes.
She would not, and then in a moment
Her clothes from her body he tore;
And cast her with one brutal movement
In the lantern’s glare on the floor.
She fell with a cry of anguish,
And then as she did not rise,
He lashed with a brutal thong-whip
A blow in the maiden’s eyes.
Then down came the lash and blood spattered
From the breast of the white-skinned maid!
At which Kaleef laughed like a mad-man,
As another cut he made.
At that laugh something seemed to kindle
In the breast of the stranger there,
With a bound like a maddened panther,
He bit, like a fiend, at the air,
Straight at the throat of Kaleef,
He sprang with a devilish curse,
And bore him down and held him
Till the veins in his hands seemed to burst.
They fought like fiends in a hell-pit,
Rolling over the blood-stained floor,
And swayed like a roaring torrent,
Till they reached the curtained door:
Then, in the heat of deathly throes,
Was heard a sudden crack!
And Kaleef lay both prone and still,
Dead,-with a broken back.
Black-faced and picked by vultures’ claws,
Lies Kaleef in desert waste;
While safe within the stranger’s land
Dwells the white skinned maiden chaste!
(Cedric Forbes)
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Based on Topics: God Poems, Sadness Poems, War & Peace Poems, Cry Poems, Prayers Poems, Hair Poems, Snow Poems, Lies & Deceit Poems, Music Poems, Pleasure Poems, Hell PoemsBased on Keywords: spattered, skinned, houri, fattened, henna, unmerciful, white-skinned, cobblers, black-faced, mad-man, she-cat
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