a change in melody, a shift of rhythm happened and I consistently look out for the tunes which are not exhausted, in one way or another.

but here is a song which goes in every moment and place, which, I find, never loses its novelty. 


There was a boy...
A very strange enchanted boy.
They say he wandered very far, very far
Over land and sea,
A little shy and sad of eye
But very wise was he.

And then one day,
A magic day, he passed my way.
And while we spoke of many things,
Fools and kings,
This he said to me,
"The greatest thing you'll ever learn
Is just to love and be loved in return."

"The greatest thing you'll ever learn
Is just to love and be loved in return."

Nature Boy

It was the light
and it was the air
the miraculous

and while I write
it is already there,
writing is always about ending
'cause it is about naming
it came and passes through me
to an infinity

it is the time the melody changes
the bottom of the deep blue ocean
reverberates
it is tangible,
a deluge of divine response
I tune in

Sketches for A Personal Chronicle

In a world where time does not obey a universal (solar) order but rather passes according to things, a personal chronicle would have to devise a unique system for recording instances. In this way, an anniversary, for instance, would not be an annual recurrence, but would be celebrated (or commemorated) every single moment the event is recollected to the mind of the proprietor of the chronicle. However, since recording the time of the first occurence is the purpose of keeping a chronicle, it would be appropriate to write down the associations which would serve to the recollection. The following are some suggestions for a future chronicler of a private chronicle:

• it was full moon 40º to the horizon, mid-summer, french balcony, dark green wall
• just before I had this feeling of a punch on my stomach due to which I was unable to eat, and I starved
• when I realized I was a butterfly fish and that I was not in the water
• on the broken pavement where the sidewalk ends against the park
• the world hushed and I gave ear to a shared silence

and on recording durations:

• until the dogs barked
• when the sky reddened
• as long as a cat's sleep
• seventy eight heartbeats in ... tempo
• until the breeze which electrocuted every single hair on my skin left my body

optics

The camera introduces us to unconscious optics as does the psychoanalysis to unconscious impulses.

Walter Benjamin

The Angel

I dreamt a dream!

What can it mean?

And that I was a maiden Queen

Guarded by an Angel mild:

Witless woe was ne'er beguiled!

And I wept both night and day,

And he wiped my tears away;

And I wept both day and night,

And hid from him my heart's delight.

So he took his wings, and fled;

Then the morn blushed rosy red.

I dried my tears, and armed my fears

With ten thousand shields and spears.

Soon my Angel came again;

I was armed, he came in vain;

For the time of youth was fled,

And grey hairs were on my head.

William Blake, from Songs of Experience

the lost village

once upon a time, there was a village across the ocean on a hill, bending towards the other horn of the bull, before the earth was round like it is now. the village was called the Hollowland because every one in this village was born with a birthmark on the belly. The shape and the color of the mark was not at all similar in everyone, but once looked closely, it was not very hard to notice that the natal scar was in fact a hollow, inversed inside the body.

after the Flood, as can be imagined, the people of the village has dispersed through all directions on the planet, as they were few in numbers, they settled with others, raised families and hid their unique marks reminding them their homeland now submerged under the dark blue ocean. then winter came, and then the spring, and summer and then winter again. many winters passed, seasons followed one another and so the generations. the grandchildren of hollowpeople has lost their trace in their memories of a long forgotten village bending towards the edge of the earth. but once in a while, the hollow grows bigger, grips the body from within, burns the flesh like a concave volcano, leaving behind no visible scars, only the birthmark which looks like a dark mole.

soru

erguvanlar açtı mı?
sığırcıklar göçtü mü?
martı yavrusu kendini
çatıdan aşağıya bıraktı mı?

blue

castle made of words

I build a castle
made of words
pieces of sentences
delicately put on one another
it grows high
and high
thick brickets of sounds
with no holes or windows
to look out
from my castle made of words.

I have every reason to be mad
to be angry
to be whatever I am not
to be somehow solid
to be what I need not be

every one of us
will drown in our own loneliness
in our castles made of ice cubes.

Şubat

Ben bu içimin yankısıyla, ben bu içimin koruyla

bu narı daha fazla taşıyamam.

Düşecek ellerimden, dağılıp dökülecek odaları,

dayanamam.

Benden sana mevsimlerden anne, uykularımdan tüller,

ömrümden ağrılar sızmıştır.

Bu aşk bende bir imkânsızlık tasarımı gibi kaldı,

kaldıramam.

Adı Şubat olan bu şiirde kalbim

uzun bir nehir gibi ağrıyor. İnat yumağım çözüldü.

Sol omzundan siyah atımı, sana düştüğüm o eski şubattan

çukurumu alıyorum.

Benden kalan boşluğa kırmızı bir araf düşüncesini koy.

Nasıl hatırlanırsa bir yaprakta bir orman

bu kez o olsun beni sana hatırlatan.

Bir gün olur senin de düşerse elinden nar

Aşk bir gün seni de alır bir yerden bir yere koyar

Ne zaman ki kaplar gönül mülkünü kar

Çağır o zaman, anlatırım sana,

bir ömürden nasıl döne döne geçer turnalar.

Sanma ki inadımda sarı bir safra

dilimde uçuşan rüzgârlı bir sayfa

sözlerimde silinmiş şifre vardır.

Sökmedin beni çölden, yolum araftır.

Birhan Keskin, Ba

Enso with a poem

can sıkıntısı

Can sıkıntısı, iç kısmı en sıcak, en alacalı ipekle astarlanmış, sıcak, gri renkli bir kumaştır. Rüya gördüğümüzde, bu kumaşa sarınırız. Ondan sonra kendimizi, onun astarının arabeskleri arasında yuvamızda gibi hissederiz. Uyuyan kişi ise, bu kumaşın altında kasvetli ve canı sıkılmış gibi gözükür. Uyanıp ne rüya gördüğünü bize anlatmak istediğinde de, bize anlattığı çoğunlukla bu can sıkıntısı olur. Çünkü zamanın astarını bir çırpıda tersyüz etmeyi kim başarabilir ki? Oysa rüyaları anlatmak bundan başka bir şey değildir...

İlk Taslaklar, Pasajlar, Walter Benjamin

kalos estin ho bios

everyday is a new day, some days are newer and shiny. today I am so happy to receive a mail from a friend who lives far far away, and close by heart. how strange is this relativity of distance. and a dear friend is fortunately close no matter what.

when I was little, I was wondering why people were making space flights, landing on moon or sending an orbit to Mars. I am still puzzled: why on earth humankind try to reach outer planets while one of the most difficult things in life is to reach one who is right beside?

perhaps the most unbearable distance is the one which is physically the closer.

anyway, kalos estin ho bios!

Xaipe/ 65

I thank You God for most this amazing

day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees

and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything

which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,

and this is the sun's birthday; this is the birth

day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay

great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing

breathing any-lifted from the no

of all nothing-human merely being

doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and

now the eyes of my eyes are opened)
e.e. cummings

Fragmentary Blue

WHY make so much of fragmentary blue
In here and there a bird, or butterfly,
Or flower, or wearing-stone, or open eye,
When heaven presents in sheets the solid hue?

Since earth is earth, perhaps, not heaven (as yet)—
Though some savants make earth include the sky;
And blue so far above us comes so high,
It only gives our wish for blue a whet.

Robert Frost

Takahama

I look at the river.
A banana skin
Falls from my hand.


* * *

I caught a petal fallen from cherry tree in my hand.
Opening the fist
I find nothing there.

Kyoshi Takahama

corner

argumentum ex silentio

the politics of truth
no, let me correct
the policy of truthfulness
or better phrased:
honesty may come cheap and nasty
yet, not as much as dishonesty
and the conclusion is,
we are bound within our language
this very specific language
hence,
we are also confined in our silence
trapped into this limbo
between le langage and le silence
c’est la possibilité de la parole contre toi

could you please be more specific?
yes, I will be. I hope I would.
language is the limit of our existence
we dwell in our language
and sure,
language comes before our existence
we are born into it.
so, beyond this language is non-existence
we do not have a means to reach this other realm.
it is beyond our reach.
so, it logically follows from all these
that
what cannot be phrased,
that which cannot be put into words
does not exist.

dream cloud

A dream has landed
on a cloud above Taibu
curtaining the sun

difference