Janissaries were the eldest sons of Christian families in the Ottoman Empire who were taken as infants from their families and brought up as strict Sunni Muslims who often became the cruellest soldiers in the Ottoman armies - but not always.

I'd love to wander far from this meagre time and place.

Back to the ashes and the dust of what I remember

A besmirched, a frightened, a human place: my mother's face..

But they drag me back to the intricate losses that serve to mark

My constant passing, my unaccompanied loss of place.

Grey and black thunder clouds mount the Bosphorus and all my

Comrades are afraid. Fearing the spirits of the earth. Fearing

Their death with so much Christian blood on their hands.

The Ottomans use us against our own people. And still

They will not convert. My people. O! How I hate this pretence:

But power is power and patience is a necessity

And, so,  I must bide my time. Wait in line.

And practise the breathing as the Hindus teach. And as I breathe I see

Their lined, sad faces, like the crumpled leaves of autumn

in the wet, forests of the north. I see merchants from Arabia,

Dhows packed with slaves to sell. This hellish trade

Makes me turn my face towards the mountains of purple Bougainvillea:

All beauty carries a crown of thorns.

Just as the wine from Al-Andalus lifts

Then dashes my fluttered heart:

The poetry of Rumi then the music of the harp.

These Ottoman commanders teach us underlings to smoke

Hashish. ‘You will become a loyal assassin of the Sultan.’ 

It doesn’t work with me. It makes my anger burn

Stronger more silently. My hatred stings fiercer every day.

In the slave market on this clear-sunned March morning:

I see a young Ezedi girl being prodded by her Arab owner.

She has blue eyes like mine. She will be sold

For a heavy price in gold, to an old, rich man.

Our eyes meet. I tell her in the silence of the cool of the morning to be

Strong, to wait for the right time then to take her revenge

Without mercy. It is our song. We are strangers in this strange land.

The alchemist bled me today and prescribed a tincture of opium

These prescriptions do not ease the pain I feel. There is no

Solution to my deep heart’s ache, the ache that afflicts my soul.

I long for rain and cold, instead the heat and dust of deepest Anatolia

Dries my mouth and throat. We are hunting Kurds and Ezedi.

Zoroastrians maybe. I do

My best not to find them.

The Sultan wants more galley slaves, more bodies of infidels

More blue-eyed girls for his harem.

Their lust is never satiated. Never.