Not unlike Provence, this sheen off a sea
\nferries gouge jagged furrow wakes into,
\na warped metal sheet whose irridescence
\nshowers blind spots among protein floaters,
\nso radiant the glare. Or the graveyard
\nat A\u015fiyan Asri<\/i>, a real P\u00e8re Lachais<\/i>e,
\nits luminaires – among them poets
\nI shall never read – mouldering under slabs
\nwhose script needs parsing to comprehend.
\nNow here at Be\u0161ikta\u0161 at the bar my gaze
\nfalls upon the gauzy film raki sloughs off
\ncrisp facets of ice, billowing veils within
\na tumbler in whose cloud can be divined
\nnot diaphanous future but past murk.
\nSuppose raki had flowed before pastis,
\nthe Bosphorus come before original Seine.
\nWould I not then be able to decrypt
\nthose epitaphs graven on tumbled stones?<\/p>\n
*** Not unlike Provence, this sheen off a sea ferries gouge jagged furrow wakes into, a warped metal sheet whose irridescence showers blind spots among protein floaters, so radiant the glare. Or the graveyard at A\u015fiyan Asri, a real P\u00e8re Lachaise, its luminaires – among them poets I shall never read – mouldering under slabs whose … <\/p>\n
\nSince our exact latitude and longitude are now inscribed into the meta code beneath every text we write and in any case are just a hop away through the apps, it would be supernumerary to provide detailed information about the cemetery in Istanbul where this poem begins. I could also try to place it in time, determining the UT coordinates for that day in August in 2012. Time, though, is more fungible than than space. Why bother?\u00a0<\/i>Raki at Be\u0161ikta\u0161 belongs in a set with, among other poems,\u00a0<\/i>Pastis at Bandol<\/a>. From<\/em> Turning toward the Light<\/a>.<\/p>\n