(Excerpt)
And there were two opposing
races battling with erotic
mania both yearning to embrace
the most beautiful city
on Bosporus, the only one
both races wanted and dressed
in their shiniest they kissed
the soil their soles stepped on
men fell like grasshoppers
like bees people went there.
And it was the most beautiful
city the between two seas,
an Aphrodite, a fairy, oh
you Constantinople, oh You!
And it was the orchard
of the world onto which, like
a single glory, the people’s
poles matched, where unsuitable
barbarians came from
the end of the earth to
the Roman Constantine
to battle it out under
Hellenic banners