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

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.”