SHE

Darkness is a waste product

of making light

or

light is a waste product

of making darkness.

Indeed, both light and darkness are waste products

of God’s command: “Let there be

She.”

A CONTRIBUTION TO THE THEORY OF RELATIVITY

The speed of light depends on

how fast the dark is carrying it.

“LET THERE BE LIGHT”

300 km lie between us.

You are one-thousandth of a light-second away,

but will I live to see you shine…

DEFINITIONS FOR DARKNESS

To Yordan Eftimov 

1.

A former light that darkened after shining to no purpose.

2.

A kind of light

we fail to see

because of a defect in our pupils.

3.

Corpse of a light

with eyes pricked out.

STRIPING THE HIGHWAY LINETO HEAVEN

To Malina Tomova

Trying to learn by heart

its favorite verse:

“let there be light”,

the firefly 

dots with its stammering lightning

the night 

that till the dawn pretends 

to be unable to perceive the sound 

of the light reading haltingly.

A DEFINITION FOR SURFACE

“Nations have waged wars for an outlet to the sea” Tatyana Fileva

Earth-
an endless outlet
to the sky.

GROUNDS FOR A SKY

The sky
is black and blue
from a collision with the Earth
in an attempted
suicide.

MOON’S WITNESS FOR THE TRAGIC END OF THE SKY

I did my best to warn the sky away, 

but it had sunk 

up to its ears

in the Earth.

MONOLOGUES OF AN INFATUATED DAISY

1.

If, as they say, a lie repeated 

a hundred times becomes a truth

what is to happen to the hundreds 

Of “loves me, loves me not”s.

2.

I pluck the first of seven petals 

And “he loves me…”;

Then a second: “loves me not…”;

According to the third: “he loves me…”;

But according to the fourth: “he loves me not…”;

And then the fifth: “he loves me not!?...”;

The sixth: “he loves me not!?!?...”;

The last: “he loves me not!?!?!?...”

And how is he to love 

A daisy with no petals…

REINCARNATIONS

My life and death repeatedly pretend 

to chase each other through my soul

and I pretend I’m running for my life.

DUEL

For Özlem Çekmece and my headache

I challenged Death:

he faced me with a pistol in his hand and said:

“prove that you are the faster of us both!”

I shot

right in my temple

I, I

I’m playing hide-and-seek with Death:

if he finds me, I’ll have to die;

if I find him, I’ll have to die.

EXECUTION FANTASY

Giving me a kiss

on the neck,

you are beheading me.

PAINS OF LOVE

I asked my pain out

but she refused…

to leave me.

TEMPORARILY

All roads lead to Rome,

because now you are there;

and none – to Istanbul,

because now I am here.

TIMELESSNESS

I envy time,

Because it stays with you

Long after

We have parted…

MY(?)

Dedicated to my(?) better half 

With a precise sweep

the sea-gull diving between the minarets of Sultan Ahmed Mosque

is cutting the creation with its whiteness

into two black halves.

In the first,

I am not even half a man

because 

my(?) better half is in the other.

THE CROSS ROAD

The roads you are pacing

envy all your steps so much

that they attack each one of them

to crucify it just the way we are:

on the crossroad.

BUTTONS ON THE COBBLES

Dedicated to Türkocağı Street situated in the central part of Istanbul… This cobble street is littered with numerous buttons that have fallen from the cars supplying the ready-made clothes shops.

Our naked thoughts are pacing

on pavement overgrown with buttons.

You are saying to yourself;

His look is too torrential and

it may wrest the cobblestones

and throw us down

in the arms of our bodies.

I am saying to myself,

Who’ll spur the clouds,

make her thoughts undo the buttons

Of her soul soaked with love?

Our thoughts are pacing 

on pavement overgrown with passersby

and our bodies jammed with loneliness and verses,

drenched in wishes

try to pick them up and whisper in their ears:

“Hey you: don’t think so much!”

ROUND-THE-CLOCK

I mate with the night

but she goes away

with the first day she meets…