In The House Of Dengbej
Three sisters sit
Each in crimson velvet
And veiled hair.
Relate tales
Of interracial love.
Of Armenian Boys and Kurdish Gals.
This is a town of
Cobbled streets and redbrick houses of the ancient Lore.
Diyarbakir, Sur.
Fidus Achates: an Armenian gal and a Kurdish girl
Are no more. The ghosts of the Armenians; translucent
Still linger on the mud walls.
Poplar trees cast melancholy shadows
Over the last remaining residents
Mostly Kurdish
Soon to join the ghosts of the Armenians?
Still the guerrilla resistance continues.
Behind the soiled curtains of white lace.
Death is a banality. Blood spills on baked soil
Daily.
Freedom is a distant land to be conquered.
Wine making and relating tales of ancient lores
And the allure. Lured the youth to Sur.
The House of Dengbej in Sur.
Finest stories are spun like sugar
And spread from tongue to tongue.
* Sur was once a very cosmopolitan town with a harmonious community. It is now a town of bitter conflict between the Turks and Kurdish.
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