Saturday, October 5, 2013

A Poem For Eser

          TO HER

         You asked me for poems

         Poems of joy and happiness

        Adventures into the known and the unknown

       Poems from the depths of being

                 Of  being together

       Full of smiling faces and hippos drawn as small as cockroaches

      Aimless night drives to alleviate pangs of hunger

      Sneaking invitations for delights to come.


     Don’t you know that poems are sad?

     Suleyman effendi and Alfred J. Prufrock live with us

    Timeless trains of misery leave Haydarpasa station every minute

             On the minute


     Who was I to change the hieroglyphs of Boddhisatwa

             and the kyrie eleisons of the man made of wood

     Sonnets were not my style.


     Today it is different

     It is time to redefine

     Not to seek joy in sadness

               Nor to conquer empathy in depression

     Just sit back (or forward) and say:

           It is good to travel with you,
           And you,
           And you,
           And you,

           You.

(1978- .........)


Notes :

-  Pictionary games with kids and friends
- Driving Daughter late at night in Riyadh, KSA, to get her to sleep

- Suleyman Effendi, character in Orhan Veli poem 
- Trains and Haydarpasa Station : Reference to "Human Landscapes From My Country", Nazim Hikmet

Hieroglyphs, Boddhisatwa, Kyrie Eleison, Man Made of Wood : from poems by Asaf Halet Celebi



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