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On 29 May 1453 the Greek Christian city of Constantinople finally fell to Muslim armies. At least 4 million Christian Greeks, Assyrians and Armenians, who had resisted conversion to Islam for 500 years, survivors of the Byzantines, were slaughtered by the Turks, many in the early C20. Now there are 2000 Christians in Constantinople and 15 million Muslims.

Imagine that you are falling
Endlessly into a dreamscape
Which morphs immediately
Into a vampires’ lair
That most say
Was never there.
In a quiet street
In Constantinople in June 1453
A Turk is found drained
Of blood lying in the gutter
Outside an early Byzantine
Church. The Sul’tan
Orders the immediate execution
Of the Greek Orthodox priest
And the conversion of the church
Into a mosque.
And all the acolytes of the priest
Had their throats cut, as a warning..
The next day a Turk
'Died of his wounds’
(to the neck)
Outside a Byzantine merchant’s house.
The Sultan orders the immediate execution
Of the merchant, his family and all his servants.
This pattern continues for 500 years
Until in March 1985,
Long after Constantinople has become Instanbul
To all except a few antiquarian scholars and fanatics,
All the Greeks in Constantinople
Have either been killed or have fled
And in a quiet village cemetery
In Holy Transylvania the graves are disturbed
One coal-black night
When Count Dracula’s mission of wild delight
Has finally  been accomplished.