The smell of the blue Mediterranean,
the stench of the red Bosphorus.
The sound of the shallow tide,
the wash of the passing battleships.
The smell of chappati’s cooking,
the scent of tea brewing.
The drifting fumes of small fires,
the stinking smell of burnt gunpowder.
Crawling hunched under these hills,
endless scrambling along shore edge.
Like Greeks before Troy, without a horse,
like crusaders seeking the Saracens Head.
Like lions led by donkeys.
Dead.
© Ian Andrews
March 2015
