ANOTHER EXPRESSION OF DEPRESSION

SOLASTALGIA

Fireflies flicker in brief sojourn

Twinkle but do not return

It is now a season for moths

For whom old paths become new oaths

Flight patterns

Flashes of memory instead of lanterns

Homes are houses once again

Where families no longer reign

Survivors huddle each and each

In one hand an unripe peach

Gnawing at food and other things

Like pains and thoughts time brings

The host of dreams have less range

From child to teens to this age.

ACC   May 1, 2019

POEM FOR ALL TINY TOTS

MY GRAND CHILDREN SPOKE TO ME

Toys do not give warmth

Just a little love comes forth

From a strange shape of fluff

Sometimes better than a grown-up’s voice, gruff

What is a rhinoceros

Or a hippopotamus

Even a cow with a moo

Or a bird which says hoo

We do not have these living with me

Or dad or the always present mother, she

Who is very giving

But sometimes , sometimes, also forgetting

I play with a huge toy elephant

But would rather follow a tiny live ant

Size is not important

As long as I can stuff it in a compartment

One day I will read books

That say a child is all about where he looks

Feelings come from peoples’ eyes

And their hellos and goodbyes

The mystery of the oven

Is greater than the cries of the nursery coven

And the toilet paper roll I can tear

Is so much more than the frilly skirt I wear

Air, Earth and Water I prefer

To all the toys on offer

And all the trees and flowers and bugs

Make up my Fire along with all the hugs

2014 den BIR YAZI

İSKELE – VAPUR İNSANLARI

Hep çıkarlar  birileri vapurlar iskeleye yanaşınca; yanaşırken de. Çoğunluk bekler, küs küs, heyecansız, gidecekleri yer belli ve zamansız, geldikleri yer meçhul ve önemsiz. Tekrar gelip tekrar gideceklerinin farkındamıdırlar, o pek bilinmez.

Yarın gene ineceklerdir o iskelede, hep hafta içi tarifesinden başka bir vapurdan; Sütlüce varken geç, ondan daha süratli Boğaziçinden daha erken; şimdi ise insan isimlilerden; sanki birileri birçok başka insanı taşırmış üstünde, içinde, sanki bu bir adet, gelenekmiş gibi isimlendirilen yeni Şehir hatları vapurlarından.

Arabalı vapurlarla iletişim daha fazla olmaz binenler için. Ama, seyirci olan ve hayalinde oyuncak ilaç kutusu kökenli otomobilleri yerleştiren çocuk için otomobil de bindiği vapur da daha yakındır, suratları belirsiz, koyu renk kıyafetli hepsi birbirinin aynı insanlardan.

Kutu otolar sokulup sıkıştırılır Onaltı-Onsekiz araçlık Sahilbent veya Altmış üç araçlık Karamürsele ve sonra çarklarını kaybeden araba vapurlarına, insanlarını boşaltıp üst kata yollamak üzere.  

Çıkanlar güvertede, üşenenler oto esaretinde her daim demli acı çay içerler küçük, ince belli ince camlı, altın yaldızlı bantlı bardaklardan. Sallanan ıslak tepsilerde servis yapılır,  bahşişe alışık olmayan, müphem, isimsiz kişiler ve Dodge, Desoto, Chevrolet, Peugeot, Mercedesler arasında dolaşan, bezgin de olsa süratli bilgeler tarafından.

Otolar canlanmaz aslında sürücüleri binip, yürüyüp gittiklerinde;  binenler gibi unutulma yolunda benzerlerinin arasına karışırlar, üniformalı askerler, önlüklü ilkokul çocukları gibi.

Ben de oralardan ayrılıp ilaçların kutularından çok kendilerini kullanmayı hayal etmeden bir gün uygulamaya başlayarak benzer olup olmadığı belirsizlerin arasına karışırken, benzer olmadığıma ikna olma ve edebilme yönünde ıslak tepsimi sallayarak sessizce iskeleye doğru yöneldim.

Ahmet C. Çelebiler

Nisan, 2014

MARRIAGE

COUPLED LIFE

checked and balanced placed on a scale of eld or memories spent weighed over AND over compared ever and ever not with reason or remorse bound collared cuffed with silk or hemp ring or clasp

ACC

Jan.30, 2019

REDEFINING SELF

Mystical, Statistical Scientificology

i hypothesized
at an early age
that i was a theory

based on assumptions
and conundrums
comprising
mystical mantras
equations and Sigmas
matrices and metrics

tested for Chi
tested to a t
and for probability
all very scientifically
not superficially

but then I grew
and doubt did too
surviving
till age sixty two

Now 
at almost four score
hypothesis, proof, theory
        no more
a test  of significance only
        failed miserably


ACC  January 18, 2019

A FOREVER POEM

Personal Observation

aesthetic touch is not art as such but the finger that linger on a memory or hair frail and a thought stray ACC January 18, 2019

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