There are so many cats in Old Town, Nicosia that they swirl
as smoke around your ankles, as cats are wont to do.
And where you can’t walk for the tourists you cannot
sit at the many cafes and bars and restaurants without
at least one cat possibly two approaching you well before
the wait staff introduce themselves to you.
And while we’re sure they’re here to keep the rats at bay
and would be preferable to pigeons there are still pigeons
as with all balanced systems and surely behind the scenes
then as many rats as these many cats would allow.
That first day we got lost along the winding streets between
the hotel and the tour group as
we decided to head back for our passports
crossing into Turkish Cyprus at the forefront of our minds.
And in the sweltering heat the end of Autumn come around
what this place must be like in Summer I can’t imagine
the feeder streets smell of sweat and perfume as we hit
the fabricated wall layered with an icing of barbed wire
again and again as the little blue
arrow spins like some mad swirling
dervish in a geomagnetic storm.
And we pass the corner shop we recognise
owned by the three Palestinian / Iranian?
brothers and their friends and patrons
standing outside drinking beer in the heat.
And we walk single file along six inches of
pavement with big city SUVs and Mercedes
gliding widely past at speed so impassably
narrow and effortlessly European.
Tomorrow there will be an accident and a line of cars
will back up around so many twists and turns
that the drivers will need to escape the confines
of their cabs or risk melting to the faux leather
seats airconditioning aside.
And we slip across the Ledra Street Barricade into the Turkish
north with the Turkish bazaars seemingly quieter more
reserved and I can buy a beer so that makes me feel more
at home but I still have to pay to take a leak
admittedly I’m getting used to that.
There is a restaurant just off Apollonos Str that offers me free Ouzo
every time I sit down. I sit down quite often as a result
and before I am given a menu the owner places an Ouzo
clouded in water in a tall highball in front of me.
It’s all very Ernest it’s all very Parisian
but I am neither him, not there.
There is another restaurant, a cafe really that I frequent as often
where the owner is the most beautiful woman in all of Cyprus
and that’s saying a lot. In Cyprus all the women
are beautiful and they always smile at you. She wears her wavy
brown hair down and when she’s busy she ties
it back and in the heat a fine sheen of sweat on
her cheeks like down and her smiling eyes.
I am drinking far more Tsipouro than I can afford but when
a woman smiles at you that way you take whatever she
puts in front of you and you say thank you.
In the morning I masturbate in the shower
watching my reflection in the mirror
I have the body of a greek god
gone to seed.
In the afternoon I sit in front of my
PC practising my beat poems and
waiting for an email that
never comes.
And in the evening we stroll down Ledra Str looking for a restaurant
which is not as easy as
you think, with the cats
swirling around your ankles like smoke
and the owners offering you free drinks
and all the beautiful women of Cyprus robbing you blind
with their smiles.
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