a 4,000 year old story

After three years exploring Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, Orphan and Elf looked at a world map.

Our creative and healing work here is complete for now, said Elf.

I agree, said Orphan. I feel restless and need renewal. Where shall we go?

Make it new day by day. Make it new. Let's see, said Elf, tracing the map. Did you enjoy Turkey four years ago?

Yes, their hospitality is kind.

Ok, how about an ancient eastern town near the Black Sea with mountains? Pine, maple and evergreen forests? Fresh air, olives, tomatoes, cheese, hot bread and pastries? The Greeks and Romans lived there.

Sounds perfect for our never ending adventure. It's on the Silk Road. Did Marco Polo visit there?

Yes. He passed through. Like us. Maybe we will meet him or a wandering relative. We will share tea dancing silver spoons with new friends.

To travel is better than to arrive.

Ok. Let's go to Trabzon.

Hello July

The wet, rainy season is a lie layered with truth. 

Rain is a wild and crazy lost midnight rambler. Looking for love. Chasing illusions is aggravation in the whirlpool.

Rain returns to a room under night cover. Mystery is out. 

A sprite of 25 wore the silver flower ring with 7 petals. Consternation in Rain's heart felt the sense of loss forever. Petals transformed tears into hope.

Under a weak light money mama smiled through crooked teeth.

Flower was beautiful in an immature petulant passive way. Her lack of confidence met betrayal.

Rain blossomed her fragrance with instinctual objectivity.

memory 5, 2

this is memory 5. let's see what we don't know through a turkish lens. light and angle. a woman waiting at sophia for someone she's dreamed of in a future arranged marriage, a boy at a sewing machine, an old man walking, a shaft of light on a carpet, yellow pipes and a white cloud at a metro stop, a door surrounded by stone, arches, a halloween ghost. 

this is memory 2. a mudanya baker with his art, a fisherman repairing a net, empty oilve cans, shoes and yellow wall, pans waiting for burnishing, farm tools. life is simple in turkey. 

eat my heart

He got into her Turkish tudor foolish fuel efficient machine, slamming her erotic door creating aftershocks in Sichuan and kissed her hard love.

“Wow,” she said, “that was delicious. Tell me more.  I feel insecure and despise all my devious intentions.”

“I am too sad to speak. My verbal actions will tell you a story. I am sad and lonely. I can talk about America and how I lost my chance to be rich and famous. I played college baseball and the coach never let me hit. I sat on the bench getting splinters in my ass. I was always treated with disrespect. I will reap what I sow. I can tell you about people who will cheat you.”

“What kind of story?”

“Drive around. I will concoct a magical musty mysterious tale of woe, conquest and self pity.”

She shifted out of park. Her thin hands gripped life’s wheel.

She remembered wild sex with the tall absent minded angry teacher, speaking of sex, death and Indian food fool foreign language hands, lips, smells, tastes, aromas, a throbbing purple snake and confused groping. She couldn’t sleep, let alone dream, remembering it all. 

“I am a man eater. You are a man. A real man. I will eat your heart. This is our custom. We eat the heart of our lover to give us strength. In exchange, I will give you something to remember me by and by.”

“What happens after you eat my heart?”

burn

the woman at the metro
with a burned leg - you remember her clearly
how she sat after dragging her bad leg
into the car, into the compartment
this image of her
alone
cold
scared
in pain
how did it happen? why is she alone?
on a late night in a flimsy sweater
her skin below the knee
running to her ankle
all burned away
exposing blood red lines
her abstract expression
her sacred scared distracted face
watching night fly past windows
where blue televisions and children kept an eye 
on each other
how the woman kept going
on the metro past a stop
where the expensive private hospital on a Roman
hill gleamed its extensive intensive pensive care
ward and her treatment was delayed,
forgotten, useless
here
because she is poor
so she stayed in her seat
anxious now feeling her pain
wondering where she would go
where she would end up on this night
as a stranger studied her anxious, passive 
expression feeling burns, violent burns
inside sensations fire and heat
nerve impulses darting through, along sensory
channels where signals are blocked by
neurotransmitters shutting down
her chance