www.theshamelesstwat.com

The Colossi Go To Sleep

Thank you for bearing with all the babbling about myself, women, poetry and the world. Mostly myself. I fight against the appetite to write about myself, an unneeded and unhelpful desire, a pitfall trick of the ego. I intend to be a man who talks much less and much better, a rebel and a sportsman, a scholar of serenity and perhaps religion, a different kind of nuisance. Everyone is a poet these days, and I don't blame myself or any of the others who make a claim to the title, but I want to be able to say "No. I do not write poetry. I am not a poet." The Colossi go to sleep in their bed of sands, the fate of all colossi befall them and harmony is well-kept. For when I do fail at accomplishing all that I wrote above, if I return to poetry, I will not disturb the sands of this blog, I will create a new one. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Please accept this last scribbling as a send-off in keeping with the spirit of the blog.

The Truth Being

Every single woman still in my heart

from Eve to Rebecca to Salome to Beatrice
each with their uniquely distorted view of me

and every vision of myself I have lost sight of
in voyages across glasses half empty

and even this thunderstorm we call a government
although it couldn't look me in the eye
and I couldn't understand how the hell you can trim a moustache and a people just like that

has passed through my little tent now.

My attempts at a well-disguised revolution of everything
hidden somewhere amidst these trees

have changed nothing:

as every single woman once in my life
and every vision of myself I have wrecked
and this moustache a government
passed by me in this park
I remain well unable
to sing to any of them.

Where Is My Own Irving Layton?

"I always think of something Irving Layton said about the requirements for a young poet...: ‘The two qualities most important for a young poet are arrogance and inexperience.’ It’s only some very strong self-image that can keep you going in a world that really conspires to silence everyone." 
                                                                                                                                         Leonard Cohen

Where is my own Irving Layton
an exuberant supporter
of my defeats?
Where are my true mentors, those
who do not drain whatever little is left
in my wallet or my heart or my marriage to the holy books? those
who do not diagnose me with anxiety? those
who tell me I am special? those who do not
themselves escape to a psychiatric ward
and weep and weep instead of owning up
after hearing what I have to say?

Where are my teachers? Where is the cure
for cancer? For pimples? Where is
what is not in sight? Where can I be blinded
by the light at the end of the tunnel? Where the train? Where is plastic surgery
without all the 'plastic'? Where have my prayers
gone? My Arabic? My childhood voice? My singing voice? Where
is my guitar? Where are the chords I'll never learn? Ladies? Where in the world is Waldo?
where in the world am I? Where the hell am I? Am I?

Where have you been? Where are you aching? Where do I
enter? Where is the handle? Where the decelerator?
Where is the world? To be? or Where do I buy rope?
Where oil? What precise spot on the ceiling
won't bear my weight and give me near-death?
A nirvana? An immortality in the present? A new outlook? New looks? This glorious spot,
this solemn Zen-master of a spot
must be found, warmer climates of the heart
must be found, cheaper plane tickets
must be found, better questions must be found
or I must die. But tell me:
Where is my own Irving Layton
an exuberant supporter
of my defeats?

New Notebook

I am not proud
that I rip off notebook pages
unsatisfied not with the content
but the handwriting

but this is the way the world is, too,

and although I can't say that I don't regret
the lives I've given up in the wind
more a papercut than paper
thin and soaked
empty space for the most part
skin and lines not blackened adequately
in battlefields and lovebeds--

but this is the way the world is, you say,
I could've been the solitary weak page
in the manuscript of an august masterpiece
not edited off, not quoted
while those pressed against me
would be caressed into immortality
by the generations of beauty.

Sancho Panza

I do admit I fooled around
with little Kut quite a bit
when I gave him this bloated mask
and such pretty people to meet

I put in him longing for home
then hid all homes away from him
when he found one I made him ask
whether it was worth the dream

Too much passion for a dead art
with too sparse a wordbook of love
the illusion of a great task
but shoulders not fit to push and shove

"Self-mockery in rhyme is smart"
he thinks, gosh, he will speak and speak
no glory in which he will bask,
not a single ounce of unique.

I do admit I fooled around
with little Kut quite a bit
when I gave him this bloated mask
and not the courage to quit.

The Voices

The Law says I'm now a Man
The pictures say I'm but a Boy
I think of everything I can--
then a She says "You're just my toy."

The Inside says that I'm a Soul
Brain Research states otherwise
Leonard speaks there'll be a Call
My Friends say I'm food for mice

The Heart screams "I'm Immortal"
but betrays itself when it aches
Time creeps on sweet and subtle
waits for when it'll eat my face

Graveyards with silence choose to speak
and mutilate dreams taking flight
whichever truth I choose to seek
already muted by the blight

See, these voices roar and blow
within my ears day after day--
Terrified I just hope to know
one day what I'll choose to say.

The Truth About Humanity

Those that say humanity is
the great monuments and empires
built and destroyed, great loves, great struggles,
great literature, great sex, great faith:
you are wrong. Humanity is
a sequence of not-yet-dead men stuffing cotton
into dead men's assholes
-so that they won't shit their sheets and coffins-
and hoping to be able to shit in a toilet
for oh god just a little bit longer
until they lie flat dead on a stone
their assholes exposed and rotting.

Sakura

I am done now
learning to yearn
for things unattainable
the introduction of you
an all-sufficient instruction for me
in that regard;
I am done with the desire
to explore the whole of this world
or have the whole of this world
come explore me in awe
before either me or this world
is stuck in the ground in a coffin--
The sunken cities
that hide in the swollen seas
your large pupils swim in
is all I want to go to.
The sonatas,
the sonatas of fear and laughter and sweat
your long fingers can draw from me
all I want to hear, your fear,
your fear and laughter and sweat all the taste I want on my tongue.
you see: My heart
no longer a house for the imitations
of great things, no longer like
the cheap dusty Sacred Heart of a plastic Jesus
in another forsaken church
but a mantelpiece for your light feline sit,
that crossing, oh that soft crossing of your legs
that makes the whole of this world tremble,
and the bastard you grin like.

You Come Down From the Stage

You come down from the stage
already feeling like a tree
fooled into a full blossom
by a treacherous March morning

you come down from the stage
utterly alone, the personas you loved,
the personas you hated--the personas that blissfully weren't you washed away,
gone, and once again there is no excuse
for this haircut that is rather a lack of a haircut
once again there is no excuse
for this face, this pitiful waste of benzoyl peroxide
and (never quite) Clean&Clear.

you come down from the stage
to an empty bed, that was all the gazes you'll have on you
for the next god knows how many months,
now you have to live with everything
the make-up remover will not take off
the hunchback of your character
exchanged with a more difficult kind of hunchback

You come down from the stage
already feeling like a tree
that fooled itself into a full blossom
in a March morning almost like any other

ready to have its flowers
frozen and cut down by the winter
ready for nothing else,
nothing else at all.

An Airport Emergency Journal

            The way priorities of passion and greed are drowned at times is clear only when the water is burning the nostrils and the throat and the heart. ''How do I fucking make sure that I stumble upon the blonde in the lobby again?" becomes "Where the fuck in this room is my passport." Desire turns to despair, desire made cold and wet like wet clay, uselessly smearing and freezing on all the fingers. It is the perfect little red booklet that you need now, not the perfect little red nipples: That which is made perfect by its seemingly unreal loss has overcome that which is perfect in its lifelike dreams. Indeed, loss overcomes imagination. You imagine perfect little red nipples again, other perfect little red nipples; but every time you lose that perfect little red booklet -for you do lose that booklet very often, in hotel rooms, in bags, in airports, as if to abandon the name and the likeness that is you or as if to cut all this crap and pleasurably imprison yourself in a waiting room of an airport forever-, every single time, the nipples will be gone. Everything will be gone. A gentle, mellow aching of the heart for a few hours and no more "Oh I am so happy and so anxious and so curious and so fucking frightened that I will be living on another continent in a few months and oh what is the food like and ah the culture is definitely inferior yes but yeah human rights and freedoms are certainly much, much superior" but only an "Oh will I be alive the next second, please let me be alive the next second' now. The nipples gone, the passport gone, the hotel rooms gone, airports gone. Only the heart remains. The heart of the matter. Not that any of it matters. Nipples in a hotel room and a glorious higher education in a foreign continent and other dreams of the future shall be unravelled only if they are to be unravelled, because the ache shall heal only if it is to heal and if it is to turn into a torn, dead heart then it will turn into a torn, dead heart. Loss drowns all passion and greed, death drowns all loss and passion and greed; and the fear of death drowns all, even death. But if your heart is not aching yet, none of this will matter much to you, I know and approve this, the audacity of an uninterrupted, unbothered life. If -or when- your heart is not aching anymore, this will really not matter much to you either, not anymore. I know and approve this, too, the foolish, immense forgetfulness that characterizes the human being, making him the slave to passion and greed crying out in joy and exaltation. But you've paused graciously from your passion and greed to read this crap, so I will cut to the point: Go on, go on like this, write little meditations or chase nipples to suck or lose and find your passport, whatever you think will help you get through with the fact your heart is slowly -or quickly, (''oh please not quickly''--the first and foremost and the only shared prayer of all men and women)- becoming torn and dead; but pause just for a little moment every once in a long while: Think about trying to become the kind of person who doesn't lose a passport, not quite that often, think about not worrying about death and separation that much, it cannot possibly be good for your heart. Or think for a moment about seeking medical attention. Then carry on.

Gifts

My gift
is to read lucidly and impress the elderly
in two languages
and win at
small insignificant things
like not pulling the doors that say PUSH and predicting rain.

Your gift
is beauty
I would kill you
if I knew I could steal your gift that way.

I read men and women whose gift is
to write like mirrors;
unravel body and soul, make and unmake
dawn and dusk between two covers
I would burn every single letter they wrote forever
if I knew I could steal their gifts that way.

I know of someone
whose gift is impeccable health of mind
who is alive despite knowing that
his name will be on a gravestone somewhere someday
I would unleash maladies on the world
Pestilence and plague, dusk, eternal dusk
if I knew I could steal his gift that way.

This
is the kind of person that I am:
shameless twat, servant to the vest
who wants the dawn and the dusk, winter and summer,
your gifts and his, all the gifts, greedy, yes, won't stop--

luckily someone gave me a gift of paper and pen
so I lie still in my little lair, buried
in jealousies disguised as longings
my desire endless
my limbs unmoving
my blessings uncounted,
scheming and scheming.

Is Impressionist Landscape Poetry Possible?

A bleak

cliff

gray

headache

after

A dawn

sour

river delta

dry, so dry

stomachache

after

a starless

debauchery

first transparent

then gray

damp

dim

a quarry

increasingly solitary

after

a violet

lily

lambs

whistle

dusk

heartache

after all

all that remains.

***

This piece was a derivation from another experiment:

New Year's

a headache

is all that remains

after a stomachache

after the heartache.

A Different Kind of Poetry

I am jealous of Cohen

he’s 78, he’s famous, he’s rich, he’s good, he says

“Come on baby,

give me a kiss

stop writing everything down.”

I am 18, on the other hand

and still say

“Come on Kut,

write something happy, write something light, write something good.”

But nowadays my life outdoes me

when it comes to poetry

my days are becoming one by one

kind poets of kind poems, I envy them:

the days are almost getting longer

and the nights no more pretend to be heart attacks—

the bed lets me sleep all through the dark

and lets me go when it’s time -for a change-

the Bosphorus ferries wait for me

empty bus seats wait for me

the cabs without the cigarette stink

the cab drivers without the philosophy and the politics

oh what bliss

the winter

the winter properly foreshadows the spring

the sweatshirts are here

(though with a cigarette stink)

the letter is on its way

I am on my way

these brownies

baked for me?

oh my, oh my, oh my

and all I say (in Chinese) is “Qing wen, wo bu shuo zhong wen.”

but that too will change soon.

I am still jealous of Cohen

as things aren’t too good in the poetry department as you see

but you know what

it doesn’t really matter

that much

when my life is making

such fine poetry of itself

like this.

Our Lady

Our Lady of the Rosary shall know

many good poets spoke many good words

about roses and other good things

and when we strive to follow in their footsteps

her face is the rosary on our tongue

her memory bead after bead

her memory rose after rose

Our Lady of Mercy

now needs to rain upon

other bards and travellers

and teach them how one shows mercy

to himself. Our Lady of Mercy

now needs to be the steady branch

under some other tired bird,

the steady branch

under some other unsure flower bud, the steady branch under

some other woodcutter’s hand,

goodbye, Our Lady of Mercy,

thank your blessed heart for trying even though you knew

we have way too many sins to forgive.

Our Lady of Peace

we try to be in peace in her absence—

there is no anger, there is no strength

left in us to unsheathe an anger,

to unsheathe a grief, to unsheathe our hands, to unsheathe our hearts.

Peace she has taught us well, but in her presence

we swung our rotten wooden fears and swords, pretended to be at war

and in her absence now, we pretend to be in a peace

that is not the peace of a graveyard,

                                           of a borderline,

                                           of a still pool of blood,

                                                a stiffness,

                                                a silence.

When does a silence become a peace? When is longing’s edge made blunt?

Our Lady of Navigators

stands now on a deserted island

she does not wait for other sailors

but she cannot steer us now

our ships without wind, anyhow,

are but other deserted islands,

our hearts

but other deserted ships in the wind

lost in the Depth and the Breadth

without her steering.

Our Lady of Sorrows

was not a lady of so many sorrows

ere she met us, we have been to her

a gale to a naked soil

a whip to a naked back

a dagger to a naked heart

a lie against the naked truth

an us against a her

but now we are made barren, we are flogged, whipped, struck

now we are being lied to

and it is too hard to be an us without a her.

Our Lady of the Rosary shall know

many good poets spoke many good words

about roses and other good things

and when we strive to follow in their footsteps

her face is the rosary on our tongue

her memory bead after bead

her memory rose after rose

Another Saturday Night

Another Friday poetry night:

The only hands you get to take

                                                               belong to your keyboard

The lips you get to kiss

                                             that of your swollen self-reflectivity

                                             -and oh God are those some cracked lips-

The sweet voice you get to hear

                                                                is your own mind’s

                                                                and echoes within (and within and within and within)

 your own mind, dammit, and nowhere else

The eyes you get to gaze and gaze at

                                                                         can’t believe what they’re seeing in the mirror

The rain outside you’d like to walk under

                                                                                   has already soaked you

The purse you’d like to make lighter tonight

                                                                                          is already empty

The hangover you won’t have tomorrow morning

                                                                                                      seems to have already fucked you up

The words you will laugh at yourself for tomorrow morning

                                                                                  seem to be already in the writing                          

                                                                                                                               

 again.

Another Friday poetry night:

The moon

                     is in hiding.

The good lines

                              are in hiding.

The good friends

                                  are in hiding.

The good girls

                             are in hiding.

                            -and the bad ones too-

Another Friday poetry night.

You

        are in hiding, too

        but not hidden quite well enough

     

        from yourself.

The Overheard Prayer #2

now that encyclopedias and envelopes and ink

and swords and shields and wars

and maps of east germany

mock my uselessness

from the shelves

from the walls

i

now that i’m the leaf without a stem

the fire out of air

a leaf on fire

without

please

now that You are in Your arms

in her arms

in his arms

not in my

arms

You

now that I join those that i’ve hated

the man of Your past

who also hated me

and each other

and those that

come after me

in a strange

fellowship

i

the archives in Your heart

have become heavier

insignificantly

please

now that i am out of my good metaphors

out of my endless disbelief

out of my great lies

and my greater

excuses

You

i

please

You.

This Land Of Ours

In this land of ours

they would rather silence us

so perhaps this will be no more than

half a poem; but let me tell you

what happens in this land of ours:

In this land of ours

poets recite misery

politicians recite poetry

and the people recite

the names of politicians

and never poetry.

In this land of ours

poets drown

flapping their little tails

dying of thirst

lost fish on our pavements

in this land of ours

intact fingernails a luxury

a generation ago

the next generation too, perhaps:

in this land of ours

there used to be

the fascist

the communist

and the appropriate

now our communists are nearly extinct

and mostly they adapt fascism

in its various forms

and people are trampled on

in this race to be appropriate

in this land of ours

burning hearts are placed

within baglamas and lauds

and hummingbird fingers

can keep pace with heartbeats

but also in this land of ours

brains are burned—

their smoke and their screams rise

and thus our hearts

are blackened and choked

so in this land of ours

women are our women

daughters all our daughters

their virtuousness ever holy, ever in question, ever all ours’ to protect

from each others’ sons—

oh and in this land of ours

our beds are not covered with sheets

                                                 or rosebuds

                                                 or couples of all sorts making love

but with homophobia

and skeletons

and skeletons of words of love

and wives grown fat

and husbands grown sweaty

and with bills unpaid

or at best with content snores

and bloodshot eyes

and in this land of ours

it is always too late

the hours

stop not for us

-maybe for others-

and now all we can touch

is a little humid space left behind

and all we can taste

is an empire long gone

in this land of ours

no thank you, we are

quite comfortable waiting and waiting

in this land of ours

rivers flow

and men die of thirst

because we are to learn the names of rivers

(in one language and intent, mind you)

and not carry water buckets

in this country of ours

they are erecting walls on

our doorsteps

and windowsills

our birds

and our few forests

our truths

and on our mothers

and on our faiths

in this land of ours, friends,

they make gravestones of our youths

slaughterhouses of our fields

leaden soldiers of our greatest hopes

bludgeons of our holy books

teardrops of our stars

and handcuffs of our crescent.

In this land of ours

I do not matter

nor any of the others

who are doing no better than me.

Little Broken Heart

now Istanbul calls me home
to little ferry docks, to a little sea
to your little hand, to your little smile
with all its gigantic heart

but when Istanbul calls me home
it knows it calls me away from
another a home, a little home
with a little heart where I'd like to place
your little hand, your little smile,
your little you, your little heart
and Istanbul's whole gigantic heart

now you call me home
and I call me home, too,
so let's ride little ferries to a little dock
in the heart of a little sea
meet there, forget about hearts
forget about seas, forget about cities
forget about Istanbul, forget about you, about me, about home
and live off your little hand and your little smile.

2/11/2012

A No Poet

you insolent chopstick of a boy

you call yourself

a young poet

in the reasonably warm social circles

a wannabe poet

when warm humility is needed

you call yourself a fucking awesome poet

when her warmth is won and spent

and you’re in front of the mirror

but you know you are an insolent chopstick of a boy

and I know you are an insolent chopstick of a boy

and no, you’re never gonna be the best poet

just like I’m never gonna be the best poet

you who won't drop the pen

though i’m the disappearing ink:

go fight your windmills

find yourself a Sancho Pancho and a donkey

though you see in the distance that

I am the windmills

go on pretending to be a fat little Buddha

burn your heart for an incense

though you know from the smoke

I am the Nirvana

go hold her hand under the Moon

let the night cover her faults for you

though you know in the dusk and dawn

I am the Sun.

go fight the casinos valiantly

keep wearing that poker face

though you know that on every chip you win

it is my stamp that you’ll see.

but keep calling yourself a young poet

or a wannabe poet

or a fucking awesome poet

i’ve won this game

the first time you finally shut the fuck up in the night

and the wrinkles of your bedsheet called to you:

‘You are a no poet, Kut

stop imitating the old lizards.’

Now That You Are Here

***

God is alive, magic is afoot.
God is alive, magic is afoot.
God is alive, magic is afoot.
God is afoot, magic is alive.
Alive is afoot, magic never died!

God never sickened.
Many poor men lied.
Many sick men lied.
Magic never weakened.
Magic never hid.
Magic always ruled. 

from "God is Alive, Magic is Afoot" by Leonard Cohen

***

I love to speak with Leonard
he's a sportsman, he's a shepherd
he's a lazy bastard
living in a suit.

from "Going Home" by Leonard Cohen

***

mister leonard cohen

welcome to istanbul

                   to constantinople

                   to byzantium

                   to the bridges i live under

                   to the seas i breathe

                   to the domes i top

now that you sleep under one of the roofs

i probably have passed by or over or under at least once

when searching for home

  and a line about home

  but most of all for a throat and a breath

perhaps i can show you around.

you’ve been doing the showing around

for far too long.

now that you stepped on both sides

of the foundation

and the doom of this city

you should

pray in our synagogues

pray on our bridge

pray while the call to prayer and the dusk and the hills

pray with a fishing pole in arnavutköy

pray as you start a new song about

pray beside the skeletons of our sultans and our caesars

pray with me

teach me to pray

teach me poetry

teach me song

in return

i will give you another seventy seven years and three hundred and sixty three days

in return, cavafy will come, though i’m afraid he’ll be hitting on you terribly

rumi will come, whoever he is, he will come, come, come again,

byron will come, dragging along a new mistress, dragging his foot,

hank williams will come and you know what, his cough is gone,

mister leonard cohen,

now that you are here,

if he manages finally to find his grave

Federico Lorca will come

and we’ll go grab bucharest and toulon and barcelona and boston and montreal for you

bring them all here

right in front of your guitar

and your bow

we have enough room in this city
to make you a lazy bastard for real.

mister leonard cohen,

now that you are finally somewhere here

don’t go.

September 17-30, 2012