EYE EYE (I) by Helen Norton (Turkey Sept 2011) Boots of tanned and stitched leather locked and laced on his soft feet Become cloven hooves clamped at the edge of a crumbling cliff The boots shuffle a little excited desire as his eyeball and great view meet Lusting flushes rising upwards - his neck frill expanding in glee Oh what a huge land dissolving far away into the blue His eyes summon the thirst to drink in the viridian sea He sees the worn paths he will walk up and down and all around Dreaming of the furrows he'll plough, the crops he'll plant and sell The forests he will mill, bark and burn to the ground Frescos of dancing gods faces and twining vines And secret caves yawning at great temples and spires So mighty - the suffering within is lost in the lines But with all the animals he can milk, tame and roast Does what he see make him happy, wealthy and wise Or ... give rise to empty aspirations full of which to boast Would that he be robbed of his beady thirsty eye A blind man on the same gasping edge of the world What would he then desire to covert and call mine As he stands at the crest of the mountains tease Would he reach out to grasp and hoard the horizons bridal train Or reach behind him begging ... please For one safe hand to hold, lest he stumble over the rocky edge To his death in furrows, crops, ashes, and animal bones Made by a dreaming man whose eyes of mad desire rule his head May the fleas of a thousand camels infest your armpits Helen Norton 28 Sept  On the way into and out of Cappadocia, Turkey Turkistan The Rulers of Turkistan by Helen Norton (Turkey Sept 2011) Here you come again The Aegean seas boiling behind Ten thousand in each row Fifty lines deep drink the dust Across the smoking plains of Anatolia Over the corpses of your brothers Rises a mortals face in stone Conquerers beware Self proclaimed rulers Turkistan is mine I sleep beneath the rubble I wait for your greed To re-enter again and again Name yourself king Of prickle and rocks Spun silk winding road Ripped, torn and frayed With sweeping views For You the new God To end all and all and ever after Invent law to change law To murder me again and again Kill your own And eat your children's future With no second thought Tear down that which dishonors your fame March over poverty Bathe in ponds of Turquoise jewels Soak up another mans riches Dragging Your gold and silver behind Like a starving mongrel Never full always on his belly Go on take it all The same hollow wind will blow Through your crumbling temples As through my bones Worms will spin the silk without your loom A cat I will return again and again Lounging in your ruins and stone crumbs As you tiptoe and stumble in sandals Bind record and preserve Declare sacred and guard Build temples to protect temples While I sleep in the rubble While I sleep in the sun No man my master Despite what you scratch and gouge Into your pillars and memory Turkey belongs to me Yet you try again and again and again