BIRQASH (SOUQ al-GAmaal) CAIRO

At the heat of the day
Is when some Camels pay
Foaming their mouth
Bloodied by
The anger the ire
The torment the fire
For here in the desert
Some die
Tormented with sticks
The poor camels they
Are bashed in the face
Intensely some say
Terrible scenes
And screams that go through
One’s head and one’s heart
It’s undoubtedly true

They walk very far
And they work very hard
Ships of the desert
Continually scarred
By children and merchants
Who beat them with sticks
In many ways sadly
They get knocked for six
iMans at the top of their voices
It smacks
Guttural cries and violent attacks
Brimstone and fire it’s a causal display
To see camels and hear them screaming away
The violence distasteful
Intense cruelty
A market of some contradiction.that be

Too much to cope with
For those of us who
Love animals and seeing camels who do
Put in a lot with long distances they
Suffer greatly at the hands of sellers
Who may
have an unorthodoxy about them
It’s true
And behaviour that’s frenzied and preposterous too

It not that far from Cairo a market from where
Traders may come from distance to share
The best and the worst of their camel brigade
Sages and fools and some unaware
Of the deranged mentality
And the lunatic fringe
Who in truth do abuse
And frighteningly whinge
And the poor camels suffer
Some die in the heat
Bleeding and foaming
Dread is complete
It is cruel disappointment
To see these great beasts
Knocked about wildly
And eventually feasts
Made from their bodies
Consumed over fire
Every part of a life
For the camel was dire
Worked like a slave
In the dry heat and sun
And it’s life stolen sometimes
When it’s seen to be done

In all parts of the world
We see agony unfolding
The camels they suffer
The merchant boys scolding
Whipping their eyes and their testicles too
Wherever apparently animals do
Suffer it’s tougher
Out here anyway
The rigours of desert life
And the decay
That comes with the heat with the dust
With the sand
And the ugly behaviour
I don’t understand