An autobiographical patch

A Lasting Patch on Tapestry of Life

I started to age when I was fifty nine. It was not sudden, but the process was quick to affect me physically, emotionally and intellectually. In negation of all the literature on the subject, the highest IQ score I got was at that age. My IQ started moving fast downhill, gaining potential energy which it would never have a chance to use since I also started abhorring uphill climbs, during that time. I may also have lost the possibility to apply to one of the high IQ societies whose membership either spend their time patting each other on the back, (a commendable pastime) or brewing up conspiracies to bring religion, nationalism and or dictatorships back for deserving countries, (not so commendable but with some merit also, depending on one's beliefs and status.)

My last uphill climb of seventy eight steps was two weeks before I was diagnosed with two blocked arteries. Between the two events, I flew to Trieste for a board meeting where I had to tread the endless appearing corridors of the old head office of the parent company. One would have thought that, having survived the ordeal of seventy eight steps at a rocky seaside resort in Southern Turkey, I would prance through the dim corridors. But, alas, each step gave me a pain in the midriff, which I associated with reflux, gastritis, blocked intestines, Italian natural gas or maybe even a cancer of sorts. The shortness of breath I was feeling was attributed to my weight and smoking, or just the heat. It was June 2004, a monkey year for a monkey man.

There are those who boast of my friendship and others with genetic ties who may say that my aging actually started when I broke all the ligaments on my left knee while watching a group of small kids swoop through a wooded path, climbing to the steep snow bank on one side and not being able to control the right ski from sliding and the left one abandoning my size eleven feet. However, that is pure hindsight like "The Black Swan Theory."

LAST DAYS

Bottled Up

last days are just that
although i can hear you say, "what?
that's not gamesmanship at all!"
"this writer does not see the court and the ball."

yet, for the poet, it is the play
the play by play, which may
stop only when the clock winds down
and the sand, its last particle has flown

into a bottle with a waist so narrow
goes the sand and the debris it can borrow
to stretch the instance, believing it may be elastic
becoming as time goes, more and more caustic

then one not so dreary day
like many other one meets, on the way
the bottle to one side flops or is turned
with the sand defiled and churned

Even if there was a witness
to say, "there is still more sand your highness!"
to flow down, and some detritus
but the time keeper is egregious
and for the rest, it is only a hiatus

till a passing maid turns it up
whichever way she does a cup
causing a new life to be short for lack of sand
and no musicians to play the band

It is not poetic to consider aeons imprisoned in a child's beach pail
filled and left for life to survive, no matter how frail
all the time that stood and was swept in the wind
sand that traveled but never ceased

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