Poet's Distraction

How can I write,

when my head is a Moroccan street market?

 

Words loll in teasing heaps,

Sentences slither round argan-oily bowls,

Concepts leap up from storefront stools

vying for attention,

demanding purchase:

Come this way, lady! I make you good price!

 

Ears swivel in the street clamour,

quiver with gabble of tongues.  

 

Eyes hooked by glinting trinkets,

hypnotised by hue of shawl and rug.

 

Nose enticed by spice mountains,

mocked by tang of man and beast.

 

Tongue gushes with orange blossom water,

shrivels in the donkey-blustery dust.

 

Skin a scalp-drum rattling with each beat-beat, each beat,

of the clatter of carts on the cobbled street.

 

Heart

wooed

by one Berber boy’s beguiling.

 

How can I write?