Pamukkale

I have a name
deformed by
customs officers

I have a Name
unlike those names
that fill
the phone directories
of the world

The name was born
from the warm Springs
near Kusadasi

the splendent
crystalline baths
the marble slopes
of Pamukkale

200 miles away
from Kusadasi

As I sit here
and look at
the happy people
on a postcard
drifting away
in cleansing surge

I found my name
in Kusadasi
one hot summer Day

and then I knew
this was my name

and wished

that I had
seen the place

driven the hundred miles
over a Turkish road

to Paradise
and I myself
had cleansed
my sins
and found the memory
in Pamukkale

Go in those waters
and to find
my Name

Strip it of the
vowels
and the consonants

put into
my grandfather’s mouth
that weren´t there
before he sailed

through the Atlantic

Get back our name
for my Grandfather’s peace

Deliver us from
Fake Nomenclature

I can almost see them
before the desk
the customs officer

Italian or from Spain

abandoning
their name

letting it rot
inside the molten wood
of Transatlantics

abandoning our name
in the hope
of new beginnings