DAD WAS CORRECT

My father was a horticulturalist. He also had a job as a regional inspector/auditor in a large bank but that was not very important except as the means to pay for the education of his three children.

Occasionally he told stories he had heard and a few events he remembered. World War I during which he had to work in the State Railways to escape death in Gallipoli battles. He was only the second student from his class who had survived. His work on the greening of Ankara, his establishment of the first Istanbul Chamber of Agriculture and the first official cut-flower auction house. He was the keeper of the three hundred year library of family journals and religious texts which he planned to translate but never did.

I was sure that he had a great deal to say but never told him that. Now, twentyseven years after his death, it occurred to me again that he must have had a great deal to tell me. So I sat down and wrote this poem, remembering our garden, the Ottoman tulip he presented to the Dutch envoy who came in a royal carriage from Holland, the times we worked cutting and bunching flowers for the auction and the smell of the wet earth and the grafts, seeds and bulbs all of which made up the person who also looked at my fortune only once from an old journal to tell me that continuing  to date a specific girl would cause major problems for me in the future.

For the last thirty years I have been trying to make up for him, talking with children, teens and young people, listening to them and helping them to search and find what is best for them.

Then, watching Alan Arkin, Michael Douglas, Elliot Gould and Danny de Vito tonight, the first line of this poem stuck in my mind.


To Become My Own Dad

"Children is what it is"
the birds are taught
so are the porcupines
and also dad
as he said
one drizzly day
when he invited me on the way
to one
or more
flower beds

It was the mystery
the desire to hear the story
that took me
and urged me
to dig out the bulbs
of defunct tulips and hyacinths
pretending to be dad

hoping that words will follow
and flow
writing the story
even ending it
this rainy day
sixty five years away


December 30. 2018

A Cold November Day in Chicago

Staying in and listening to music from 50's, 60's 70's 

Reminiscing loves, disappointments, sins, absurdities, rewards, penalties, presents, people, curiosities, mysteries, adventures and ventures. As much of the Seventy Four years that wished to be remembered.

After the Seventies, the music is mostly background except when they were played on the once owned expensive stereo set which was shelved away after fifteen years to be replaced with TV and then smart phones, pads, notebooks, bluetooth and years which say "Do not need to remember us. We are with you still be and for a long time. Just continue enjoying children growing up and grandchildren being children and life in all its absurdity, ignorance and uncaring interest in the future. Yours, mine, and that of peoples, nations, chiefs and starving, fighting and dying persons in cities, forests, tundra, steppes, mountains, deserts, ice, each in their own perceived or unperceived  island of probabilities."

MUSIC FOR TIMES

Childhood is for memory

Emotion

Tears

And elation

Adolescence and teens

Times for emotion

Tears

And laughter

Growing up is for ego

Emotion

Tears

And satisfaction

Old age is for peace

Emotion

Tears and

Smiling

Music is for all ages

Emotions

Life

And music

ACC 

November 2018

Through Window Panes 2

STARING THROUGH A WINDOW   2

Two cats staring at the street

On the fourth floor

And at each other

Waiting

Waiting for something to happen

Down on the street

Or

Within each other

Two old cats

Staring out the fourth floor window

Silent

At ease

Knowing

Wishing for more

Two travelled cats

Not schooled

But travelled

They look down at the street

Where nothing moves

Comparing it to other roads

On another continent

At another time

A time

Curving back to now and the beginning

Young memories of old cats

Merging in their stares

And the swish of

Their tales

ACC   Sept. 19, 2018

A POEM OR TWO

2. 1, LOCKED ONE
3. 
   
4. 
   
5. Locked rooms have old crates dusty dowry crates of misplaced dreams Rusting with dewy drops of forgotten tears
6. 
   
7. 
   
8. 
   
9. 
   

2. LOCKED TOO

1. 
   
2. 
   

Locked rooms

have

1. memories
2. and
3. daydreams of
4. wonder
5. and treasure
6. in chests
7. They are tales of dreams and dreams of tales
8. 
   
9. Childhood in dusty
10. rusty
11. mist

Ahmet C. celebiler

August 23, 2018

A BLEAK FUTURE FOR OUR PROGENY

I came across a book on the shelves of a professors's office while waiting to attend his class as a guest speaker at University of Denver in 1909 that argued religion is on the rise, replacing technology, as off the 1970's.

I thought he had a valid point and we discussed it with Joe, who had forgotten that he ever had that book. 

My favorite cause for this evaluation is that I believe that technology and especially IT has gone far beyond the common man's reach or grasp. Most of us feel inadequate and unable to comprehend where we and our lives as well as our nations and the world are going. This is resulting in making not only ourselves but our visions also meaningless and insignificant.

When people feel that way, they will look for solutions and escape in other values and beliefs than a scientific utopia which is already being damaged by dystopic films, TV series and art in the media.

Logic and scientific thought and investigation being, at this stage, beyond our ability, we can only find happiness in absolute truths and lack of the use of scientific method, where you do not and cannot criticize given hypotheses and theories.

As wise men say, education could solve this. But the educators are no different from us and many of them already have been laid to waste by the road side or are feeling inadequate.to the degree of depression and immobility.

Should we wait for the impending ice age which will surely follow the global warming that has started and is developing with leaps and bounds, to cull the human race to a population density level that will allow a more scientific culture can bloom?

Bir Mezuniyet Konuşması

Kendimi Lise Müdürü sandığım günlerden birinde yazıp gerçekten lise müdürü olan bir arkadaşıma,
"Umarım bunu aynen okursun," diyerek verdiğim yazı.

BİR MEZUNİYET KONUŞMASI

GELDİLER,  ÖĞRENDİLER, ÖĞRETTİLER, GİTTİLER.  AMA AZ DA OLSA BİRAZLARI BİZLERLE KALDI. DUVARLARDA MUTLULUKLARI, KAPILARDA KIZGINLIKLARI, TAVANLARDA ÇIĞLIKLARI. YARAMAZLIKLARI İSE SINIFLARDA DA BAHÇEDE DE.

İÇİMİZDEKİ FOTOĞRAFLARI YILLARLA SARARACAK, BELKİ BURUŞACAK, AMA HEPİMİZİN YAŞAMINDAKİ BU UZUN YILLAR MAHCUP, HEYECANLI, ÜMİTLİ, GÜRÜLTÜLÜ YILLAR İSTANBUL SOKAKLARINDA HEP YANKILANACAK. HİÇ OLMAZSA BİZ ÖYLE HİSSEDECEĞİZ.

ESKİ EKİPLER HEP DEĞERLİDİR. SİZLER DE ONLARA KATILDINIZ. BİZ SİZİN DEĞERİNİZİ BİLİYORUZ. EN ÇOK İSTEDİĞİMİZ SİZLERİN DE KENDİNİZİ DEĞERLİ GÖRMENİZ, DEVAM EDEN EĞİTİMİNİZDE, MESLEĞİNİZDE, YAŞAMINIZDA.

2005

Another Other Poem

AGE
OLD AGE

as i get older
and retire from tedium
as nature starts to reclaim the body
and the aether makes room for the psyche
i become more or less i
to me
and others
and a landscape
common
granted
for progeny
and philistines
enough to wish
i was a horned owl
in polygyny

June, 2018