Three Poems

We're in the World, So Are Words, How Nice that We're All Here

1—Morning is hissing like an empty tap.

2—You say there are gaps in what you have told me,
I say the wind awakes the shawl on your shoulder.
Is it the knot or the hole that forms the lacework?

3—The shadow of a hawk strikes your shadow,
neither you nor the hawk is aware of this.

4—When it comes to me, I love to think of myself more as a footstool.

5—I wrote things that are stories without telling their stories.

6—We're in the world, so are words. How nice that we're all here.

7—If you comb out the braids from my hair, the corpses of bees will shower down upon us.





Resistance Diaries

The first three days we didn't realize summer was here.
On the fourth day they set fire to the tents while we slept.

We didn't see, the birds saw,
the trees under which we made love saw,
the benches on which we made love saw.
We assembled, we were even surprised at this.

On the fifth day the police attacked.
They had armored cars, water cannon, orange gas, rubber bullets,
we had brotherhood and gas masks.
We shouted, "disproportionate love versus disproportionate force."
We lost the Park and then retook it.

The colors, accustomed to being loved in pairs, mixed together.
But there were more days to shout that the rainbow wasn't an illness
                                                                                   of the sky.

On the sixth day we learned that milk and Talcid was good for pepper gas;
we replaced the sidewalk stones we pulled up for a barricade.
I saw resistance fighters with Turkish and Kurdish flags dance the halay arm in arm.

On the seventh day my mother learned to use Facebook.
We learned that if we put tear gas canisters in half-filled buckets
and covered them with wet blankets
they wouldn't explode.
My father joined the resistance.
In the Park, talking to sex workers,
he said, "I don't believe that Governor is a son of yours."
These sisters liked my father a lot, and I loved him even more.

When they set fire to the tents, the Prime Minister wasn't aware
that the wick of the holy candles inside us,
which we had fed and forgotten, also ignited.
Until that lamp came into view, we weren't aware either, and we became
                                                                                   a lamp:
some kissed a queer for the first time,
some kissed a revolutionary for the first time,
some kissed a nationalist for the first time,
some kissed a Fenerbache fan for the first time,
but I think everybody kissed for the first time,
and the trees laughed out loud.

On the eighth day someone wrote to the PM on the wall:
"When you come back bring humble pie."
Money was no good in the park,
a new language was coined in the park,
nobody committed any crimes in the park,
the police hated the park.

While he watched, surprised, the pieces of the puzzle which
had scattered a long time ago came close, the shapes
fitting together, in the excitement of finding the missing pieces
he saw how his little meaningless stains suddenly formed
the bigger picture.

On the ninth day, when her mother returned from Bulgaria,
Zerrin left her allergies and the kids at home
and came with me to Taksim.
I said, "What a beautiful thing to participate in the resistance with one's love
                                                                                   shoulder to shoulder."
She said, "What a beautiful thing to still call your wife of fifteen years
                                                                                   'my love.'"

On the tenth day the Prime Minister was still lying.
On the eleventh day the Prime Minister was still lying.
On the twelfth day the Prime Minister was still lying.
On the thirteenth day we quit listening to the Prime Minister.

For three days and three nights we cried for Ali Ismail.

On the sixteenth day the Governor told us to come and get our children.
                                                                                   We went.
We heard a piano recital under the monument of the Republic,
and later learned the piano had also been arrested.

On the seventeenth day mothers formed a human chain around the Park.
On the eighteenth day we took shelter in the Divan Hotel.
And then
we quit counting the days.

I was working in the daytime, I was going out to the resistance at night.
The stock exchange was falling, the dollar was rising.
In Brazil, in Bulgaria, in Egypt,
something was happening

In photographs, my hands appear as two leaves. 





I Watch with Love Like a Stupid Student

1—I watch with love like a stupid student the world turned to writing.

2—The master says writing is finite; let's eat a plum, poppy seed, and helva.

3—This island happened when a tired swallow alighted on the sea; so begins my country's history. This is a summary of cherry blossoms.

4—I started time from the day when I saw your back causing snow to fall on the mountains.

5—Everything I said was about simplicity: blowing wind, worn stones,

6—The thing that shouts its name.

7—But still about simplicity.