SUBJECT>Sonnet from the Port Said (completed for P Doran) POSTER>David Halitsky EMAIL>dhalitsky@cumulativeinquiry.com DATE>1110805495 IP_ADDRESS>adsl-154-175-222.bna.bellsouth.net PASSWORD>aa2CpqTRwrBWA PREVIOUS> NEXT> 84750 84762 84782 IMAGE> LINKNAME> LINKURL>

Sonnet From the Port Said

It hasn't been there for a while, a place
where one should never have presumed to go
without enough to guard against the face
of every dancer whom you'd come to know,
but still thought you should shower her with cash,
and looked at you with pitying disdain
as she insistently would wrap a sash
around your head unless you made it rain.

Morocco, Anahid, and Salijah.
What monies we all tucked around their hips !
Elena, Carla, and of course, Sabah.
What Dowson would have given for their lips !
Oh, to see them do a cifetelli !
Each one Helen, each a casus belli.

Note: The Port Said was one of several night clubs in New York City's "Greek Town", which fell victim as a commercially-viable entity to many factors: ethnic white flight out of Manhattan to the lily-white suburbs, distrust of anything Middle Eastern after 1972, the greed of owners who would use the club as a gambling chip, literally. You can still go to Astoria in the NYC borough of Queens, but it ain't the same.

The club's "belly-dancers" are now also legendary in certain circles: Anahid, Salijah, Athena, Morocco, Sabah, Elena, Carla ...

At the Greek clubs, they and all dancers were required to leave the stage during their shows and circulate among the tables for the purpose of collecting tips, which were of course split with the band (and the house too, maybe - I don't remember.) These tips in the form of bills were typically stuck by customers into the belt around the dancer's hips, or else into the straps of the dancer's bra.

The part of their common dance-routine with which Westerners are most familiar is the slow and syncopated "ciftetelli", the part of a belly-dancer's routine in which her skill at abdominal muscle control is show-cased.

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