Letters from Turkey

Istanbul

Is a city of dust

Built by embers and kedi

Of three continents and one history

Above ever shifting tectonic crust

And a bosphroous strait that nurtures the sea

Over a firmament of feathers and smoke

I fall in love fifty times a day

To a different cat each time

An idyllic orgy of seagulls swarmed in the sky and

Jellyfish suctioning elastic water mines

2/28/23:

I wish the buildings too would shiver

Like the trees

I wish the lightbulb would warm

Like the sun

When I look away

I wish the curtain blocked the morning

Like the night

I wish my apartment was full of fish

Because it was built below level of the sea

I wish my hidden neighbors

Would sing at least like unseen birds

Whose trills wing and comfort me

I wish the pallor of this city

Would at least put us to rest

Like the dead

I wish our books were

Like the earth

Like a human body

Like eyes consuming

Waiting

Recording

Everything I have said

2/28/23:

You are far too close

It is much too easier

To love you from afar

2/28/23:

The poet overlooking the wharf

What thoughts do you have when you are alone, when I am not with you?

There is no greater loneliness than when even the city sleeps.

Walking six miles through Istanbul:

Just like any other city

There are the young

Drunk

Rich

People the color of chestnut

Below the chestnut trees

Eating them roasted

Vomiting trash

By trash

Leaking

On one knee

Just like any other city

With a puppy who would have lingered longer

If not led by a leash

A Anatolian shepherd looking out into traffic

For ten minutes

Dolefully

Who am I to judge

His suicidal agency?

The homeless man

Tucked

In the nook

By the polluted brook

Beneath the dripping bridge

I did not need to stay to see his wisdom

In the book

He warmed

Cradled

Looked

At with glee

Like

The seagulls

Who must be nocturnal

Perhaps they are the imams

Celebrating Allah

Atop the minarets

Mewing

Choking

Chuckling

Calling

Praying

Until morn

Crowning

The guardians of the mihrab

The bastions of filth

The filchers of human compassion

Purling on paws

In recesses below

Where I cannot see or tread

How far must I travel through a city

To know its soul?

Like love

Even a lifetime

Too short

To know

All sins of mine

Guarded by my anonymity

The wrongs

Of the rest of us night-walkers

All expiated but the sea

Even a second

Inscrutable

At

A single intersection of traffic

The trafficked

Three religions

Five languages

And six shades of sorrow

There is wealth

Beneath the eyes of the woman

Who asks me for food

The etiquettes of panhandling vary

But callousness remains

The same consistency

As the ashes of the refugees’ original domain

This is Turkey

A land of dust and buried gold

Intolerance

Then worse

Like

Tolerance

Just enough cold

To deign

Looking at children not even of another god

Who retain dignity

Through supplication of another man

Because this is the first skill

They must learn

And this is Istanbul

Where opportunity

Trembles like the earth

And

Burns

Where hope

Sings five times a day

And

Need not be earned

3/3/23:

·         The priest alone in the church and the rabbi in the synagogue both followed the imam’s mournful call to prayer.

·         The man who admired you silently with a smile while you were in the sweet oblivion of a tawny pregnant cat.

·         I love flowers that are dying and colors that are decrepit and people that are old because they beauty that has yet to be sullied by their youth, that has recovered from the time of younger years in this world built by cycles and fractals of time

Story ideas:

• Two fisherman above the Bosphorous bridge, only their conversation is retold.

• THE JESTER: “You who are offended are humor don’t realize that it is the only thing which humanizes and makes fraternity with the other. You who are uncomfortable at jokes that push the boundary of acceptable are the more racist in your implicit condescension, your refusal to accept them as agents capable of evil, your pity and distance of their past and difference. You discomfort is a manifestation of your privilege and your false empathy and your incapacity to ever befriend anyone distinct from you because they are always lesser in your perverse hierarchy. To love them, you must treat them with the same vulgarity as you would anyone else, as you would any friend. You do not and that’s why you have none.”

• Youth is wasted on the young but so too is age on the old. (Adaptation of Eleanor Roosevelt quote)

• Give the pedophile animated child porn so no real children are hurt and his base desires are indulged. Give the psychopath a non-sentient being to torture like jellyfish and no one is hurt. Give the infertile person a pet to love.

• I had to love every other country before I could my own.

  The Jellyfish of Bosphorous

Today I caught a poisonous jellyfish

Invasive

From the bosphorous straight

In a cup I scavenged from a public trash can

Which I carried for three miles

As the seawater leaked

And we were both comforted by the portable

Non-potable fragrance of the sea

I left him outside while consuming food and art

He had not moved

Save the reflex twitches

Of his most translucent parts

I don’t know why I caught him and kept him and touched him

Sticking him

Spearing him

Sucking him

With a toothpick until

A human sieve

This bare-brained medusa of the saltwater

No longer camouflaged by trash

Plastic or

Leaking condoms

Perhaps for the same reason

The oglers of Istanbul

Pet the street cats

On whim

The water drained

And like a plant

Who they say cannot feel

He shriveled

Convulsed

And died

His bubbles

Popping like

Molds of slime

Committing fratricide

Looking

Moving

Feeling

No different

Than when he was alive

The city has moods that change as frequent as the days

Poem idea: Hazelnut

-to Molly (thank you for the letter)

You are hazel

Pared only by wind and gravity

A little brown infinity

Swinging from a great brown tree

Upon a nearby bough

Led by your dust

A trail of cinnamon

Flax

And clove

Alights an owl

Tawny and wearied

Preening

Weeping

Sleeping

After long, long journey

Amid the uproar of redwings

Who ripple his dreams

He tucks away his wisdom

Impotent

Against the death

Of his baby

You single sphere of sulci

Furrowed by worry and overthink

You solitary kernel of butter

Sugar

And

Mead

Don’t you see?

Don’t you see?

You are opium of wings

Elixir for insecurity

Your eyes drown

Those who see your authenticity

You are the firmament

Against which the fallen

Falling feathers dance

You are the foothold of friendship

Rooted in this earthen land

You are missionary of tenderness

Diluted for our mercy

Hidden in your smile

Lodges

You own unknown

Resilience

Coriander

Nutmeg

And

Spice

Paprika

Starlight

Harvest

Autumn

And the capacity to fight

So do not doubt your pain

You who ease the voyager’s plight

Do not doubt your tragedy

You are seen

Beneath the frenzy of pinions that beat

Do not doubt all that you are and will be

Because you have become our heartbeat

When tears glaze your ochre glow

Hear the trill which consoles

The lost

The woe

And the bereaved

You are the canvas

Conductor

The seed

Of this song of birds

Triumphing over all the evils

Of rationality

And

When your solitude grows too heavy

And when you are laden by hope

Or the absence of its right

May these words weigh

With just enough sorrow

Like the owl

Asleep beside you

To offer eternal respite

3/4/23:

·         The man who laughed alone outside our window at four am. You wonder if he is crazy. I wonder what made him so happy.

·         The earthquake survivor who has recurrent dreams about their incident. Repeat the dream every day then gradually blur into reality of a new incident from which they think or really do not awake.

·         The couple crying behind me in the line at the airport.

TO IZMIR 3/4/23:

·         I write these lines

I write these lines

I write these lines as an old man dies

Lyrics over a living corpse

Death decorated by lyric and song

This verse is not his epitaph

Or prose for his headstone

Or a testament to his life

These lines are just for me

These lines are only mine

As he draws chaos

As he inevitably, gently closes his eyes

So let me write these lines

Just to pass the time

·         In the bystanders’ frenzied fight to become heroes, the man who they never really cared for slowly, slowly died.

·         Most emergencies are stemmed before they have the opportunity to devolve and so we become alienated from and uninsulated against true tragedy then come to feel entitled to no more than the wrinkling of happiness and peace.

·         I cannot bear moments to rich in poetry because my mind will flit like a hummingbird at the unfortunately founts of creativity and like a tachycardic heart at least too tired to beat, stop and, to the loss of it all, go to sleep.

·         STORY IDEA: The man who pretends to have a heart attack (or perhaps it is induced) is the seed for a terrorist attack because EMT technicians come on bypassing security and smuggle explosives and guns to the executors if the task. This is the best and easiest way to bypass the modern security system of airlines: exploit our respect for human life, compassion, attempt at mobility, and healthcare.

·         I want to be a doctor to be the one to always be able to respond in any situation anywhere without having to explain or prove myself not just because I want to help but because I have an insatiable desire to commit headlong into tasks that are too chaotic and frightening and demanding for most to do. I did not get up immediately to help the man in need because before I had noticed, it was too crowded to help and I would be getting in the way of others who are desperate to play hero and I don’t yet know what best to do and I would have to justify myself through the language barrier and most importantly the situation was not dire or serious or where people were at a loss (as would be the case for extreme bleeding and death or CPR need or terrorist hostage, etc.) but an episode of acute hypotension easily resolved and a plaything for amateurs who want excitement in their lives and something to remember on their deathbed. Like giving a child a toy to play with while the rest of us dare not steal their mundane glory because we know we are destined for the better, for the real, for our own. To think I can do nothing makes my heart pine more than it does with love, makes my body twitch in the anger of indignation of not even being given the chance to do good, if not for myself, for the world.

·         The Emergency: Some took pictures idly. Some slept. Some groaned. Some prayed. Some were shocked. Some chewed gum. Some looked out the window. Some looked at their phone. Some rushed to his side. Some called for help. Some gasped. Some grew tired. Others impatient. Some stared into space. Some grew angry. Some tried to sleep. So tried to play hero. Some helped. Some tried to help and got in the way. Some saved his life. Some grew sick. Some feared the same would happen to them. Some wished he would die somewhere else. Some wished he would die. Some chatted away. Many yawned. A few scratched their nose. Some woke up, annoyed and bloodshot. Some leaned back. Some pissed. Others shit. A few started a movie. One started porn. A few others played games. A baby laughed. Another cried. Some laughed. Some stretched. Some texted. Some read the free cheap a magazines out in front of them like a cat who paws lazily at a hall of yarn. Some wrote. Others listened to music. Some waited. A few farted. Others itched. A few scratched. Some stretched. Some redid their makeup. Some thought about thoughts they never would have. Some thought they filled their quota of self-reflection. Others found themselves mindful. Other masturbated what they thought to be their equanimity. Some smiled. Some burped. Some counted clouds. Some sang softly. A few met each other. A few found new friends. A few thought they were falling in love. Others transactionally, callously indulged in conversation as mutual nobodies to fill the void of wait. A few wished they got the same attention, from at least the ones they loved. Some tapped their shoes. Some fidgeted. Some cheered. Some drank water. A few did not move. Some leaned back. Some readjusted. Some clapped. Some patted their own thighs. Some read. Some resigned. Most did nothing. All did not care.

·         STORY IDEA: THE ANTI-HIPPOCRATEAN OATH (A spiteful Dostoyevskyean rendition): The man who is rejected from medical school seeks out situations where disaster is rife so he can add to the chaos and take more life and cause more harm. Like someone who becomes an EMT or doctor to be a hero and save lives, he becomes a reporter or charity worker first responder to take lives passively, untraceable, and with spite at the system which refused to not just believe in him but even give him a chance to be great, like the boy who dreams of being a hero but is called a villain so many times that he became the thing he once so vehemently fought against, like in My Hero if Bakugo ended up going evil after the kidnapping; nothing would have been morally reprehensible with his decision.

·         A good poem should feel like it is too short or that it can never end. (Whenever I write, the words are precise and come ready-made in a perfectly concise distillate OR they keep coming so naturally it is as if I could write forever, like the poem above on emergency)

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3/5/23: IZMIR

·         Love is but a finite series of events repeated ad absurdium or the premature erosion of infinity to an end.

·         The firing of a flock of seagulls

The impulse before thought

·         The snail who sees more of the world

In seconds of a crawl

Than eons of empires

Of mankind

·         Like cute aggression, an overload of sensation and affection, I am afflicted by sublime submission, those rare moments of beauty so overwhelming, I am brought to tears and to my knees by nature and human in synergy, walking through a bazaar of memories into a promenade mottled with friends and teens and families, flocks of gulls in dignified frenzy creating rain from fog, hawkers of mussels and gimmicks and tchotchkes, entire boroughs cocooned by mountains who compete for the sunset, grassy terraces smoothing the corners of my solitude, the people I love and could love engaged in conversation drowned by the fisherman who speak in different tongues, cigarette smoke becoming a cloud imperceptibly, the sunlight performing a great dance of rainy laughter and striptease, an echo of the highway becoming indistinguishable from the wind, slow creatures like a tram filled with nostalgia or a snail whose entire world is its current meal of grass, cats lingering then loping, lovers who pause to adorn their relationship with things too far too see, water crows pecking seeds of geomancy imperviously, the eyes of passersby passively curious to the strokes of my hands and my mind, boats that seem to sail the sky far above the undulating, impenetrable fabric of the sea. This is a god blessing my with just enough discomfort. This is the peace before death, the only object any life could ever seek. This is divinity, disguised in the horror of a mangled myrtle tree.

o    My biggest dilemma is to write or to continue to submit to beauty.

·         What would be your preferred subject of conversation if I did not pollute you with my questions? How far does your mind wander from your company and your feet? How much silence could you endure?

Ephesus:

·         Conversations are life and present-denying

·         The city that succumbed to Cleopatra’s wink

·         Felled by warriors

·         Who too kneeled to the gladiator of time

Testament to nature

Or to man

·         The best we can do for older people is to continue to be rude to them, perhaps more than we would to the young, to maintain their dignity and give Ben the pleasure of the scuffles of youth. To treat an old person gently, at least verbally, is to be cruel.

·         Ever since queer rights have advanced and people have found their love and married openly, so too do the same queer people no longer spread their genes that they would have been forced to spread by forced Inter course with others in an intolerant society. In this way, LGBTQ happiness foreshadows its end. (Instance of happiness building to a point of destruction as a result of that happiness, perhaps not violently but a gently fading into oblivion)

o    Like the Tower of Babel

o    Like a man eating himself to death

o    Like leaves of an autumn tree growing increasingly colorful until they fall and die

Intellectuals read. Authors live. Poets suffer.