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This poem is taken from PN Review 52, Volume 13 Number 2, November - December 1986.

Bursa John Gallas

The Principal Sights (as they are called) in Bursa are
The Green Mosque, The Green Tomb, The Great Mosque
and The Great Mountain.
                      The first is so dark inside
that it's impossible to see the walls which are, anyway,
apparently, blue; the second houses the body
of Mehmet the First and looks like the inside of a wedding-cake;
the third has a nineteenth-century fountain (inside)
and a lot of white columns with black writing that recall
the inflexible interiors of Dutch churches; and the last
is only a mountain, after all -
                               there is a téléphérique
to the top, and if you're tempted to risk your life
in a boxful of screaming tourists to be greeted at the end
of it by some cows and a table full of wooden lamps
you will have done, at least, what is recommended,
...


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