this is my star, david can have his, this is my claim over anything of this world, a little spice, hardly a castle, or an empire, a harem or millions in the bank account; a private education or ancestry stretching back to the crusades in up-kept and tidy memory like some duke of Burgundy.

only today did i discover bohemian Istanbul
sitting in a kitchen cabinet next to
a bottle of extra-****** olive oil...
barely drank... not to the palette of some,
anise, hardy recognisable in curries,
but infuse it with alcohol and the story changes,
Europe and the long lost history of
the Ottomans, and indeed the Turks,
Muslim, steppe people, and therefore drinking
people. *bahramji & mashti playing
in the background, a shisha pipe in my hand
(portable)... and today's discovery... white
absinthe! the moment i realised, i was squeezing
lemon juice into the glass... and to my idiotic
amazement the potion started turning milky...
just like Hapsburg absinthe (98%, £40 a pop)
or la Fé(e)... oddly enough not all absinthes turn
milky if diluted with water... for example
Czech red and Czech blue and even green don't
turn milky... because the Czechs drink it like
*****... in shots... unlike the other versions where
you take the sloth route and prolong the feeling
of the warming anise... that's because they contain
worm-wood. but this Turkish absinthe, i'm amazed!
small world in terms of bumping into people,
but an even smaller world to discover different
cultures in your vicinity... i should have come
across what i'm drinking sooner (it's called Rakı),
but since it's not mine i will not over-indulge even
though i know the owners of the bottle do not
appreciate anise on their palette, unlike
what diogenes the cynic said:
i like best the wine drunk at the cost of others;
           me? i indulge in what i buy, because i own it,
as i can't over-indulge the company of others.