That’s our man alright,
the vizier was born near the Drina,
his name was Bakic,
a pig-boy, a farm-hand to begin with,
they packed him off to a monastery
to study for the priesthood —
that’s where the Turks found him
when they came looking for their heads of cabbage,
the blood tax, or the gathering as they call it.
The night before they arrived
he was shuffling down the corridor,
his bladder about to explode, out to the yard
with the stars as sharp as knives above;
slask it’s called in Serbian
where you piss a hole in a bank of snow,
stalactites of gold in the morning,
but Bakic is sailing by the walls of the Kalemegdan,
and on to the Porte of the Sultan —
Byzantium or Micklegarth to the vikings,
the big walled farm. As south as south can be,
or east as the locals say.
The festival of circumcision was the biggest show in town.
The best looking boys were trained as Janissaries — bodyguards,
the rough looking ones were sent to Anatolia,
uprooted and planted in warmer soil,
they became faithful servants
more reliable than his own lot —
the Sultan was nervous of shadows,
creeping on the floor of the mosque.
That’s how a Serb became a muslim,
That’s how a pig-boy found himself reading the Quran,
a book about women as everyone knows;
his turban swelled like a hot-air balloon,
first he became holder of the stirrup, then falconer.
The harem was guarded by a eunuch with eyes as blind as fire,
he learned to ride without a saddle,
the mulberries grow sweeter as the sun declines.
A courteous man with polite, murderous eyes,
he bought clocks from Venice,
built a canal from the Volga to the Don,
married a princess in Samarkand,
put a king on the throne of Poland,
needing to bind him closer the Sultan
married his daughter to the wily Serb.
The third of his seven wives. The sweetest.
When ambassadors arrived from his homeland
with their ruddy cheeks and their muddy boots —
his lips tightened — nothing but red-necks,
hard to believe they lived in the same empire.
And what’s this about a church in flames,
a patriarch with tears in his eyes —
if only they’ll put away their knives.
Hunters of genitalia — ah, that’s my kinsmen alright.
Heraclitus was wrong, you can step into this river
as often as you like. Indifferent to the bickering of Serbs,
yet wise in the granting of office —
the appointment of a patriarch (his brother) —
the governor of Buda (his cousin).
When his uncle came to visit,
they went to a Serbian church.
No schismatic — for the glory of Allah, peace be upon him,
he built the Black Mosque in Sofia, the Bridge over the Drina,
he left many gifts to the world,
though mostly, it must be said,
for his own pleasure and profit.
The only thing I miss is swimming in the Drina,
floating on my back, staring at the sky —
it’s like a sauna in summer but here in Lofoten,
the water’s always cold. When I first arrived
it was winter. I had to walk to the top of a hill,
the end of a forest. I had to check the antennae.
I hate snow. But now I have the van.
I don’t have to walk anymore.
And it’s summer again.
Now we have…how do you say — the c-o-lor-i-s-ation
of leaves.
He means chlorophyll, photosynthesis.
The last of the ice has melted.
Miroslav knows his history: the less we differ,
the more we hate; a nation is a people
united by a mistaken belief about the past
and a hatred of our neighbours.
Laurence O’Dwyer | The Donkey of Spain
Contents | Mudlark No. 75 (2023)