uncivil anecdote

Dreaming allows for, supports, releases, brings to light an extreme delicacy of moral, sometimes even metaphysical sentiments, the subtlest sense of human relations, refined differences, a learning of the highest civilization, in short a conscious logic, articulated with an extraordinary finesse, which only an intense waking labor would be able to achieve. In short, dreaming makes everything in me which is not strange, foreign, speak: the dream is an uncivil anecdote made up of very civilized sentiments (the dream is civilizing).

Roland Barthes, The Pleasure of the Text

when the inner fire meets the outer fire (dışı seni, içi beni yakar)

I take this as a description of dream-formation, i.e. as meeting of fires

For the eyelids --whose structure the Gods devised as a safeguard for the vision,--when they are shut close, curb the power of the inner fire; which power dissipates and allays the inward motions, and upon their allaying quiet ensues; and when this quiet has become intense there falls upon us a sleep that is well-nigh dreamless; but when some greater motions are still left behind, according to their nature and the positions they occupy such and so great are the images they produce, which images are copied within and are remembered by the sleepers when they awake out of the dream. And it is no longer difficult to perceive the truth about the formation of images in mirrors and in bright and smooth surfaces of every kind. It is from the combination with each other of the inner and the outer fires, every time that they unite on the smooth surface and are variously deflected, that all such reflections necessarily result, owing to the fire of the reflected face coalescing with the fire of the vision on the smooth and bright surface.

Plato, (Timaeus, 45d-46b)

Ey Sözlerin Aslın Bilen

Ey sözlerin aslın bilen gel de bu söz nerden gelir
Söz aslını anlamayan sanır bu söz benden gelir

Söz kılar kayguyu şad söz kılar bilişi yad
Eğer horluk eğer izzet her kişiye sözden gelir

Söz karadan aktan değil yazıp okumaktan değil
Bu yürüyen halktan değil Hâlık avazından gelir

Ne elif okudum ne cim varlığından kelecim
Bilmeye yüzbin müneccim tâalüm n’ıldızdan gelir

Şu’le bize Ay’dan değil aşk eri bu soydan değil
Rızkımsa bu evden değil deryâ-yı ummandan gelir

Biz bir behâne arada ayrık de elden ne gele
Hak çün emir eyler cana bu keleci ondan gelir

YÛNUS bir derd ile âh et kahr evinde neyler rahat
Bu derde derman kefâret bir âh ile suzdan gelir   

Yunus Emre (1240?–1321?)

the whisper

"one needs to lose oneself, in order to find,"
whispered Hayyam to my ear.
one needs to leave,
in order to arrive.

you won't be ever coming back here,
back to now
don't lament your traces
time will erase them all

a rain drop made its way
to the seed underground
what seems dead and silent
can come alive to light

je rêve, moi, je ne suis pas

this was something I wrote down after watching the film Léolo, Leolo's words that remained with me, it is a beautiful little film with a big heart, by the Quebecois director Jean-Claude Lauzon whom I just learned passed away in a plane crash.

the little proud duck

oh little duck
you're so proud
of your bright colors
of dark green and brown
so proud little duck

oh little duck proud
splashing waters around
as you land on the surface
of the shallow little pond
so small is the pond

oh little proud duck
I've crossed the oceans
flied with albatrosses
swam along with the whales
I've seen the biggest storms on earth
I've been to the eyes of maelstroms

the duck, proud and little
how bright are your colors
under the sunlight
what would have become of them
if you had ever left the pond

I love these friends of mine

My friends have many mountains,
Many mountains that I can breathe in
My friends have many houses,
Many caves that I could choose to live in

Yeah, you're a friend of mine
I love these friends of mine

borrowed from Marianne Faithful's song

cloud

I am the cloud
on which
a dream has landed

rastgele okumalar 2

Masalların Masalı

Su başında durmuşuz
çınarla ben.
Suda suretimiz çıkıyor
çınarla benim.
Suyun şavkı vuruyor bize,
çınarla bana.

Su başında durmuşuz
çınarla ben, bir de kedi.
Suda suretimiz çıkıyor
çınarla benim, bir de kedinin.
Suyun şavkı vuruyor bize
çınara, bana, bir de kediye.

Su başında durmuşuz
çınar, ben, kedi, bir de güneş.
Suda suretimiz çıkıyor
çınarın, benim, kedinin, bir de güneşin.
Suyun şavkı vuruyor bize
çınara, bana, kediye, bi de güneşe.

Su başında durmuşuz
çınar, ben, kedi, güneş, bir de ömrümüz.
Suda suretimiz çıkıyor,
çınarın, benim, kedinin, güneşin, bir de ömrümüzün.
Suyun şavkı vuruyor bize
çınara, bana, kediye, güneşe, bir de ömrümüze.

Su başında durmuşuz.
Önce kedi gidecek
kaybolacak suda sureti.
Sonra ben gideceğim
kaybolacak suda suretim.
Sonra çınar gidecek
kaybolacak suda sureti.
Sonra su gidecek
güneş kalacak,
sonra o da gidecek.

Su başında durmuşuz
çınar, ben, kedi, güneş, bir de ömrümüz.
Su serin,
çınar ulu,
ben şiir yazıyorum,
kedi uyukluyor,
güneş sıcak,
çok şükür yaşıyoruz.
Suyun şavkı vuruyor bize
çınara, bana, kediye, güneşe, bir de ömrümüze.

Nazım Hikmet
7 Mart 1958
Varşova - Şvider

rastgele okumalar

bir kitabı elime alıp rastgele bir sayfa açtım. bugünki okumam şu:

KORO

Bile bile, öykü öykü, gibi gibi

Bir kenti aradığımız, bir başka kentin

Adıyla aradığımız ve asıl bulmaktaki

Çözülmez güzelliğin . .

Kan!

Hem sonu hem doğuşu en gerçek ilkelliğin.

Edip Cansever, Tragedyalar I

the story of the little cloud

children have their own world, not regulated rigidly like that of adults, but still, there is something common, something that we adults still share a little with that world, and through which we can enter into that world often, luckily.

when my niece was about two years old, I read her a tale, a story of a little cloud who decided to leave his parents and travel the world, as a nap time reading. her attention span was short and she was distracted after a while, I thought that the five page story was too long for her. we reverted to well known stories. many days later when it was time for nap, she asked me to read her the story of the cloud, amazed that she remembered the story I nevertheless asked which story she is talking about, I wanted her to tell me about it. "you know, the little cloud that you read me" she said. I read the story from the beginning again and this time she was more patient. later, I would make her tell me the story, she would look at the few drawings and narrate the story in her own way of liking. this was two years ago and I only see her during the summer time not for a very long time. yesterday I was talking to her before she went to bed on webcam and I asked her how the cloud is doing? she didn't ask me which cloud. she asked whether I would like to see it and brought me the book with the drawings of the scenes about the adventures of the little cloud.

children are curious things, like little clouds.

in search of the dream

What’s the price?
“Is the price of living a dream much higher than the price of living without daring to dream?” asked the disciple.
The master took him to a clothes store. There, he asked him to try on a suit in exactly his size. The disciple obeyed, and was very amazed at the quality of the clothes.
Then the master asked him to try on the same suit – but this time a size much bigger than his own. The disciple did as he was asked.
“This one is no use. It’s too big.”
“How much are these suits?” the master asked the shop attendant.
“They both cost the same price. It’s just the size that is different.”
When leaving the store, the master told his disciple, “Living your dream or giving it up also costs the same price, which is usually very high. But the first lets us share the miracle of life, and the second is of no use to us.”
from In Search of the Dream, Paulo Coelho

a definition of dreams

Unauthorized appearance of suppressed longings behind a false face and under a false name.

Cark Spitteler - "My Earlier Experiences," 1913

Basho on poetry

Learn from the pine

Learn about pines from the pine, and about bamboo from the bamboo.

Don't follow in the footsteps of the old poets, seek what they sought.

The basis of art is change in the universe. What's still has changeless form. Moving things change, and because we cannot put a stop to time, it continues unarrested. To stop a thing would be to halve a sight or sound in our heart. Cherry blossoms whirl, leaves fall, and the wind flits them both along the ground. We cannot arrest with our eyes or ears what lies in such things. Were we to gain mastery over them, we would find that the life of each thing had vanished without a trace.

Make the universe your companion, always bearing in mind the true nature of things --mountains and rivers, trees and grasses, and humanity-- and enjoy the falling blossoms and the scattering leaves.

One should know that a hokku is made by combining things.

The secret of poetry lies in treading the middle path between the reality and the vacuity of the world.

One must first of all concentrate one's thoughts on an object. Once one's mind achieves a state of concentration and the space between oneself and the object has disappeared, the essential nature of the object can be perceived. Then express it immediately. If one ponders it, it will vanish from the mind.

Sabi is the color of the poem. It does not necessarily refer to the poem that describes a lonely scene. If a man goes to war wearing stout armor or to a party dressed up in gay clothes, and if this man happens to be an old man, there is something lonely about him. Sabi is something like that.

When you are composing a verse, let there not be a hair's breadth separating your mind from what you write. Quickly say what is in your mind; never hesitate aa moment.

Composition must occur in an instant, like a woodcutter feeling a huge tree, or a swordsman leaping at his enemy. It is also like cutting a ripe watermelon with sharp knife or like taking a large bite at a pear.

Is there any good in saying everything?

...

Eat vegetable soup rather than duck stew.

Matsuo Basho

secret

best dreams are --
kept secret

I am There

I come from there and remember,
I was born like everyone is born, I have a mother
and a house with many windows,
I have brothers, friends and a prison.
I have a wave that sea-gulls snatched away.
I have a view of my own and an extra blade of grass.
I have a moon past the peak of words.
I have the godsent food of birds and an olive tree beyond the kent of time.
I have traversed the land before swords turned bodies into banquets.
I come from there, I return the sky to its mother when for its mother the sky cries,
and I weep for a returning cloud to know me.
I have learned the words of blood-stained courts in order to break the rules.
I have learned and dismantled all the words to construct a single one:
Home 

Mahmoud Darwish

Confessions # 1

In one of my previous jobs, I was asked to write letters on behalf of my employer who already had an assistant for that task. The letters were meant to be simple one or two sentences expressing regrets of declining a certain invitation to attend a certain meeting or gratitude of being invited to such a well-organized event. Not being in a position to decline the task I was given, and at the same time out of fury that I was asked to perform a basic task that someone in the position of my employer is supposed to be able to do, and adding to that, that my employer had an employee whose main task was to perform what I was asked, I wrote these letters of at most two sentences with an overtly stylized language which sounded too sophisticated that rather indicated an arrogant mockery than sophistication.

My employer liked the letters that I wrote so much that he kept asking for more.

I took a Kafkaesque pleasure in my secret revenge.

What happens to a dream deferred?

HARLEM
Langston Hughes


What happens to a dream deferred?


Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore—
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over—
like a syrupy sweet?


Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.


Or does it explode?

one of those moments, travelling in time

Hajo (Hans Joachim Rose), Self-Portrait, 1931

fire, gaze, the thing (or das ding)

“the outer gaze always alters the inner thing…by looking at an object we destroy it with our desire, that for accurate vision to occur the thing must be trained to see itself, or otherwise perish in blindness, flawed.”

Ben Marcus, The Age of Wire and String