TRAINS OF THOUGHT OR NOUGHT 1

TRAIN 1

Many are freight trains
               they carry dregs in bulk

Those for passengers
                    have even less
                          in fewer wagons

Sleepers have shed their mysteries
                        and  the caboose
                                their guests

Couchettes smell of plastic
                                            and feet

Window panes
                        opaque
                          frost or dirt

Inside or outside
Can one tell the difference?

Where do people get on and off
                                     at stops
When there are no stations?
                             nothing visible

ESCAPE FROM SOME OF YOURSELVES

You and I
And
All others
a FLUX
nerves and tissue and veins
webs
misery, Dearth, pain
OR fear

The personality of the person
a CAULDRON of boiling, swirling
Smoking haze,
To disappear
and REAPPEAR in a wink

To leave these attachments
Detachments
AND considerations
To pull them out of the pot
OUT of the DIRT
and
dangle one's roots in the air
reach for the SUN
OR the moon
every night and day
and
care not if you BLINK

IMPROMPTU

Sand and grain

Remain as SAND and grain

Confined in  a NIGHT-time brain



Thought moves further

than LOVE

On a straight LINE

Denying other DIMENSIONS

containing or CONTAINING

all the sand and GRAIN.


Chicago
June 24, 2017

50TH ANNIVERSARY

FOIBLES OF ROBERT COLLEGE, CLASS OF ’67

Foibles of college life, remembered at odd times, are but anecdotes from previous reincarnations. They carry no compassion, empathy, envy, grief, greed or hate, not even humour for those who have moved forward to perception of new energies, new climates and especially new mysteries.

If and when you find the occasion to talk of those foibles, and try to reminisce with those you believe to have shared those days, months, years, you may discover new memories, not your own, new perceptions of old events or non-events or even total amnesia, having bleached out certain memories or the means to access the peculiar nooks and crannies of the mind.

Alumni mass get-togethers of most and sundry provide good occasions to deliver and suffer jolts, find new myths, mysteries and doubts, and also certainties; allowing us to realise once more, and with force, our differences from each other and from ourselves, then and now.

We have lived during many ages of mankind and will continue to do so, hopefully sharing our times and lives with each other even when we cannot see ourselves or each other even in mirrors. 

Written for my Robert College Class of '67  50th Graduation Anniversary booklet 

Back to the Absurd and Beyond

This poem belongs to my travel blog,  otherchelebistravels.blogspot.com.tr,
but travellers who frequent that blog may actually be offended by it; whereas the intellectual readers of this blog will only be moved by the depth of emotion and sadness.


THE SOLIPSIST'S TRAVELS

T’is a world of mirrors,
Not one of horrors.
When you with yourself travel,
None of that “ where shall we dine? drivel.

You see mostly aspects of you.
And, every time the mirror shows a smiling you,
You say, “Why, thank you!”
“How do you do?”

What a surprise it is when the aspect is not you,
But a strange illusion, always called ‘Who?’
Which keeps creeping up on you,
In museums, on the mountains, the beaches and the blue.

It appears in lobbies,
And tiny cubbies.
Even on the front seats of taxi cabbies,
And transmits thoughts of things like rabies.

Still…., I like traveling with myself,
My one and only existential self.
And when they, the illusions ask:
“How do you enjoy the sun and the bask?”
I say, “You’re so right! When you are a crowd, t’is no mean task.”

Second Birthday of Kilic Arslan, celebrated in Chicago

Is this all you have for me?

Three generations
Even the Sons In Law

Arya's Growing Up Pains

So far the only pain seems to be due to an insatiable appetite for mother's milk.

Unaware of What's to Come

Love and Care

Commitment

GRANDCHILD II

Arya waited just the right period of time to inform Ceylan that she wished to arrive.


She joined us with  applause,

On a sunny day

defying all possibility of clouds

Eser's  use of social media and my days of

monkish contemplation,

Of all the things I hope to write

one day

about life

and living

and joy and love and

sharing