Afghanistan, July-August 1969 – Page 7

Kunduz.

One by one our Kurham and early Islamic
potlery dissolves as we melt it in wax in
the bazaar.                                     Accomplice is a little boy.
Inside of his mouth pink spoliches and lacking only all teeth
The conjurer. A shaggy man with a
and an unusually kenbu jaw
wall eye which he rolls. Has a tin box of
Sand – coloured
snakes, their sand snakes which he holds
allowing me to bury its fangs on his hands
as a Summons of prowess. He eats needles as they were
spaghetti, spewing them out later with a rech and
a flaming spit. Also manages to vomit several
large pebbles, swallows the money which I gave him
and withdraws it from his arse, and finally
produced by a slight of the wrist a wooden phallus,
erect and well circumcised. Performance tactics
off into a mock-magical performance involving a
gentlemen in white, for knife snatched designs in
the ground and a fents.

Note on conjurors. Wandering performance.
Circus followers. An indigenous. The Road.
Experience of the road invalidates the tenants of organized
religion.