Explore "My Burnoose" by Ameen Rihani on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Into this world they tell me I was sent / Wrapt in a burnoose, which was rudely rent / And flung away, by her who first didst touch / My steaming flesh; I never loved her much, / The surly, stolid, sordid, spectral hag: / For never would my star of fortune lag -- / No dwarf of earth to oppose my will would dare -- / If my sebaceous burnoose she did spare, / And if around my neck, the ajouz says, / It hung, locked in a charm, for twenty days.
But ever since the amulet was torn, / The curse of gods and jinn and men I've worn; / And to my flesh it stuck -- a Nessus shirt -- / Despite the oozing blood, and not spurt / Of power, alas! is left me to control / The stinging tongue of an avenging soul.