"bosporus" poems
716
The Day undressed—Herself—
Her Garter—was of Gold—
Her Petticoat—of Purple plain—
Her Dimities—as old
Exactly—as the World—
And yet the newest Star—
Enrolled upon the Hemisphere
Be wrinkled—much as Her—
Too near to God—to pray—
Too near to Heaven—to fear—
The Lady of the Occident
Retired without a care—
Her Candle so expire
The flickering be seen
On Ball of Mast in Bosporus—
And Dome—and Window Pane—
2.2k
i meddled in egypt a third time,
and all i said was...
a. you ancestors will say the same thing
i said, but unlike me
your ancestors will say it unto you, directly;
b. never meddle in the affairs of female
genitalia of poetics of the burning bush / *****
c. you were given judaism, christianity,
islam... instead you settled for mongol;
d. begin to believe
that riyadh is further east than expected,
as is the warsaw pact closer to the west
than the right blink of the eye of john paul ii,
FOR, I, WOULD, REMAIN, ENTICED, BY, A,
HOMELAND, I, RATHER,
THAN, TAKE, OFFERS, OF, A, SAXON, TO, EMIGRATE,
I’D, DRENCH, MY, HOMELAND, IN, BLOODED, NILE,
TO, SEE, THE, WAKE, OF, MY, THOUGHT, ELSEWHERE,
OTHER, THAN, THERE... HAR COO! JANISSARY OF VIENNA,
signed the he of whom read the book above all other books,
who wrote against the book poetry,
who wept, who liberated the eye from the mind
and endeared it with a heart,
of the slave kept captive in solemnity
for the once thought of encryption of the eunuchs,
of those who read but dared not speak,
who thus was made the claimant of the title:
the bridge over the waters of Bosporus... that kindled
the turkmen with the ottoman and the mamluk sheiks.
indeed what pretty cauliflower for a daffodil in hymn...
but lessened beauty if one should come untamed and hooded
in footstep of being recognised -
then the merchant’s (muhammad’s) price would be less
than that of an antique dealer.
Jan 8, 2016
Jan 8, 2016 at 7:56 PM UTC
if my words find no
melodious note
without accompaniment
then they are no poem
if they drop the chalice
meant to hold the last drop
of beautiful
then they are no poem
if they cannot feather in
the edges of madness
with strokes of reason
then they are no poem
if they gush unrestrained
and i cannot direct their flow
so they merely flood one's mind
then they are no poem
if they cannot pass
the judgement of their maker,
the Bosporus of his craft,
then they are no poem.
Nov 30, 2016
Nov 30, 2016 at 2:44 PM UTC
Time's a passage that will narrow
as it's traveled; clashing rocks of
past and future crush the marrow
from the present. Nagging clocks will
count each second of the numbered
days that still remain, and sound the
buzzer rousing those who slumber.
Those unwary fools who founder
on the unseen reefs of time have
never noticed how the hours will
quicken, forced through finite lives to
frothing waves, then crest and still.
Feb 16, 2015
Feb 16, 2015 at 1:13 PM UTC
Close the Dardanelles and Bosporus, guarantees there will be WAR
Putin will not stand for this, the Russian Bear is going to roar
-
This is not a trifling matter, VERY serious indeed!
Many many people, will be killed and die and bleed
-
This will lead to WW3, where it starts it matters not
What our leaders tell us, is not worth diddly squat
Feb 22, 2016
Feb 22, 2016 at 3:58 PM UTC
it's rained every day
since i got here
the soothing
sound of rain
showering a forest's leaves
accompanies
the thought of you
and so i ache
in the face
of such peace and familiarity
i wonder what
the thought of me
feels like
to you
half a world away
accompanied
by a sunny breeze off the bosporus
by your native tongue
by your mother's gaze
if i was there
with you
i'd whisper softly
that the river of my love will never run dry
i'd whisper that you are heaven
but since i'm not
i hope the thought of me claws
into your skull
i hope that it gives a bullhorn to the voice
of your guilt
so that the next time you see me
you'll know
Jun 20, 2019
Jun 20, 2019 at 3:35 PM UTC
his broad chest shudders
at night, holding in hot tears;
he sees ships sinking.
Jun 9, 2019
Jun 9, 2019 at 2:05 PM UTC
War came. How could it not? Bringing many things especially death. They wanted to knock Turkey out of the war. One ally less for Germany.
Many events happened. Some were firsts. All included death. It was the stuff of legends. Making small nations great and great nations small and killing their empires.
It was quite a LIST:
The big ships duelled it out with the forts, boom!
And the action off the Dardanelles. Historic?
A Shorts rag wing biplane made history and put a tin fish into a Turkish ship.
Much needed Ottoman army supplies lost aboard sunken ships.
Allied subs attacked Ottoman ships in the Bosporus more than thirteen times, bled the Turks white.
Those same subs being the first enemy warships to penetrate Istanbul since 1453, the Royal Navy sub B11 sank Turkey's Mesudiye battleship.
Being killed themselves, subs still on the seabed: Royal Navy E7, E14; French Navy Saphir, Joule, Marionette.
Two were British, sunk by a German U-boat, U-21, in three days.
Australia lost the AE2 but not before she dodged mines and sank a Turkish ship. Running aground near a fort was dangerous. AE2 was the first Allied ship to transit the Dardenelles.
Massive Allied battleships and dreadnoughts fought it out with the forts ashore, the French lost Bouvet and over six hundred sailors. Bouvet brushed gunfire off but a mine killed her.
Two Royal Navy ships died by mines while shelling the forts and gun emplacements: HMS Ocean and Irresistible. Inflexible was damaged. So were French's Suffren and Gaulois.
The forts did their job, thwarting the big ships and making a land campaign necessary.
The Turkish battleships fought back, firing over their peninsula.
It wasn't all one sided, for a Turkish torpedo boat, Muavenet-i Milliye snuck through the narrows, to sink HMS Goliath, and drowning over five hundred men, with three torpedoes.
The Turkish high command was sick of RN battleships raining destruction down on their forces.
They stuck it out and weren't knocked out. The ANZACS went ashore...
Jan 19, 2020
Jan 19, 2020 at 6:23 PM UTC
of history i say heave! heave! heave to transgress and travel beyond a censored existence numbed and aplenty! heave i say, a bridge above the bosporus! heave an effort of the lung translated into footprints my son; heave! only once, only forever!
we write on the colour of defeat
with warring terminology:
how handshake the white
when the shadow reveals a hundred daggers
ready for a stab if only to reveal a poem?
in my home-town a thousand crows
would encircle a saint's bald patch
for a single croak to signify their number
for only one... and i too among them walked
a shackled path to prove barbarossa's maxim true:
tell me of the mountain of black bird song
to resurrect me, and i shall rise,
heaving the breath of death among the scattered minions;
it's odd that some confuse blond with pink
when well established in man's ***** hairs on the face.
Jan 24, 2016
Jan 24, 2016 at 7:36 PM UTC
Tyrkia
Bosporus 1955 the old tanker where I was
A galley boy had anchored waiting for orders
To proceed into the Black Sea rowing boat came alongside
Selling fez which was the “IN” by the ******
They also sold sweet liqueurs which I drank, got drunk
And sick for the first time in my life I was 15, in the old
Days one had to grow up fast and howl with the dogs
The winter weather sunny I was awed by its Byzantine
Mystic just like a fairy tale story; I bought a Fez
And last time I was in Istanbul 30 years later on a ship
Where I was a cook my fall from officer grade had been
Painful, but I did go ashore not very far drank beer but
What I remember the best was packs of dogs by the quay
begging for food they knew I was a generous cook.
Jan 5, 2017
Jan 5, 2017 at 4:53 AM UTC