The Circular Ruins

For two weeks he’s been watching the same girl,
someone he sees in the plaza. In her twenties maybe,
drinking coffee in the afternoon, the little dark head
bent over a magazine.
He watches from across the square, pretending
to be buying something, cigarettes, maybe a bouquet of flowers.

Because she doesn’t know it exists,
her power is very great now, fused to the needs of his imagination.
He is her prisoner. She says the words he gives her
in a voice he imagines, low-pitched and soft,
a voice from the south as the dark hair must be from the south.

Soon she will recognize him, then begin to expect him.
And perhaps then every day her hair will be freshly washed,
she will gaze outward across the plaza before looking down.
and after that they will become lovers.

But he hopes this will not happen immediately
since whatever power she exerts now over his body, over his emotions,
she will have no power once she commits herself—

she will withdraw into that private world of feeling
women enter when they love. And living there, she will become
like a person who casts no shadow, who is not present in the world;
in that sense, so little use to him
it hardly matters whether she lives or dies.

~ Louise Glück

Go inside a stone
That would be my way.
Let somebody else become a dove
Or gnash with a tiger’s tooth.
I am happy to be a stone.

From the outside the stone is a riddle:
No one knows how to answer it.
Yet within, it must be cool and quiet
Even though a cow steps on it full weight,
Even though a child throws it in a river;
The stone sinks, slow, unperturbed
To the river bottom
Where the fishes come to knock on it
And listen.

I have seen sparks fly out
When two stones are rubbed,
So perhaps it is not dark inside after all;
Perhaps there is a moon shining
From somewhere, as though behind a hill—
Just enough light to make out
The strange writings, the star-charts
On the inner walls.

~ Charles Simic 

Charlie Poppins

‎”dün gece masada unuttuğun kek gibi kararlı olsan. onun gibi kuru demiyorum ama…”

sönmüş saçlarında son damla ışık,
bir düş’ün içinde gibi her akşam
-ve yüzleri duman kadar dağınık-
geçer bu sokaktan binlerce adam.

umut gözlerinde ölü bir bakış,
çığlık bir bükülüş dudaklarında;
bulamadıkları nedir ki, yaz kış
dolaşırlar şehrin sokaklarında?

sanki yalvaran bir duadır onlar,
belki tanrılara açık vesvese,
bir nehir. bu nehir her akşam akar
derinden ruhları çağıran sese.

~ahmet muhip dıranas

Woke up this morning with

a terrific urge to lie in bed all day
and read. Fought against it for a minute.



Then looked out the window at the rain.

And gave over. Put myself entirely
in the keep of this rainy morning.



Would I live my life over again?

Make the same unforgivable mistakes?

Yes, given half a chance. Yes.

by Raymond Carver

Tangent

I will only touch you once.
And it will only be in passing.

No use calling me back
For more.

You will have plenty of time
To rehearse and remember
This moment,

To convince yourself
We’ll never part.

~ from Geometries by Eugene Guillevic