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Istanbul Street Scene, IX
The riot at Beyazit happened after the call for prayer
On a Friday variety of boring afternoon.
The same old local vultures waiting patiently around the square,
The same secret agents selling bird feed to the tourists
Must have been surprised at the sudden swell of rage,
The quick massing of bodies with fists upraised.
Anyone with a video camera could have made their name:
For appearances sake, we might all have been rushing off
to liberate the dungeons of the
CIA
But in truth had mostly been caught up in the rush
Of a few admirably conscience-less pranksters
Treading on the red white and blue without allegiance–
Irony being the genesis of so many urban revolutions.
This way and that, my legs not moving,
I could not deny I was somehow in motion,
And from the great silence at the center of all uproars,
Chipping in my own to the accumulated anger,
As the graceful dragonfly of a police helicopter
elegantly descended
And the mob, re-directed, turned to that usurper,
I clipped the wings of my lofty indifference
And warmed to the crime of outrageous happiness.
Istanbul Street Scene, XIII
It was the day your alienation became complete.
Friends, near and far, dropped away from any understanding.
Only old pictures sustained them, those odd people
Surrounded by the things they work so hard to pay for.
In a foreign land, but it would have made no difference
Had they all been next door;
The mere thought of it was enough to drive you to Gulhane Park,
that
retreat for fading sultans,
For a few loose moments to think it over
in
the company of the old men,
‘The chill Fall wind flipping through the pages of your book,
‘The sun doing its afternoon best to fight off the cold.’
The reality was a mass of students from the nearby medressi
Who surrounded you, hung on your coat, questioned inanities,
Speaking what at first seemed like English, but in fact was the local
language…
And you understood it all.
Replies pouring from you,
Huck Finn among the Lilliputians, and with a ridiculous Southern accent-
Caught up in that strange land where intent (and not the word) is heard,
The mysterious and lovely pleasure of communication,
Doubled when exchanged in a foreign tongue.
After their teacher led them away, it took a moment to relocate;
Then, only, sunlight filtering through the ages,
The old men chuckling about kids these days.
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