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

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