Wednesday, October 24, 2012

NIŞANTAŞI

                        NIŞANTAŞI

                where mansions of pashas
                once stood among quiet hills
                harems and opium dens
                gardens of grand viziers
                where Ottoman princes plotted
                men in tea rooms   
                watch her quietly pass
                a scarfless girl dark haired
                her desires dream sequestered
                men’s eyes reaching out to touch
                what only eyes here may touch   
                her sandaled feet wandering
                deep shadowed Topağaci
                streets cobbled narrow
                stones obelisk shaped
                once targets for sultan’s archers

                in these plane tree hills
                where Atatürk played körebe
                where trams rails now jaw
                through Taksim Square
                clattering Beyoglu to Galata Bridge
                Golden Horn lies beyond
                neighborhoods like foreign lands
                a dying culture’s melancholia
                where her eyes search far
                distant landscapes Anatolian plains
                beyond the Bosphorus
                where women still hide
                their countenances behind scarves
                dreams still unmeasured
                even today

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