a lonely impulse of delight

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Holocaust Remembrance Day (Yom HaShoah)

For more photos from the observation of Yom HaShoah, see the #YomHaShoah and #יוםהשואה hashtags and the a href=”Yad Vashem location page.

From sunset today to sunset tomorrow marks Yom HaShoah (יום השואה), a day to honor the memory of the six million Jews who died in the Holocaust.

Yom HaShoah is a national holiday in Israel, commemorated by speeches by the President and Prime Minister at Yad Vashem, the lighting of six torches by Holocaust survivors, prayers by the chief rabbis and two minutes of silence across the nation. While other countries have their own Holocaust days as well, many Jews around the world also observe the day at home and at important historical sites.

Ramath-lehi, the Height of a Jawbone

Tue, 05 Feb 2013 17:02:00 -0500

And when he came unto Lehi, the Philistines shouted against him: and the Spirit of the LORD came mightily upon him, and the cords that were upon his arms became as flax that was burnt with fire, and his bands loosed from off his hands. And he found a new jawbone of an ass, and put forth his hand, and took it, and slew a thousand men therewith. And Samson said, With the jawbone of an ass, heaps upon heaps, with the jaw of an ass have I slain a thousand men. And it came to pass, when he had made an end of speaking, that he cast away the jawbone out of his hand, and called that place Ramath-lehi.

Prologue

How long did it take for Samson to kill one thousand men with the jaw of an ass?

As long as it took.

Why did he have to kill these one thousand men?

Because they were Philistines. And they shouted against him.

Our death is a cause of their mockery.

We are a number in their statistics.

No name is published;

No relationship is revealed.

All hidden under the callous type set of numbers.

Only the numbers.

One thousand.

Four hundred fifty.

One hundred twenty-three.

Seventy-two.

Fifteen.

Five.

Two.

One.

ii.

An irrelevant information:

Jovan, a father of two boys and a girl, a husband of Ivana, a farmer. 45.

Abidah, a newly-wedded wife of Kasim and a shopkeeper. 23

Bahir, the son of Bahir and the 4^th son among six siblings. 7

Hulyah, the second daughter of a silk merchant, Fahran, . 14

Sophia, the only daughter of a village widow, Lidija. 4

Death by a shelling fragment.

Death by a road-side bomb.

Death by a stray bullet.

Death by a suicide explosion.

Death by a sniper shot.

iii.

The village shepherd lady spits out a short grunt now and then, ushering her sheep on a hillside. The wind is chilly but sun is warm. Had it not been for a view of the snow-covered summit in the background, one would have thought that the day was of the early spring rather than the mid-winter.

Winter is an awkward period of the introvert. Everything goes deeper and further inward. And there seems to be no end in sight. But in winter, one does not just travel inward. One does it in questioning. Questioning every single phenomenon in life. Every old question unanswered is brought to the surface. Every old question unanswered leads to a new question until the new becomes the old. And the new would not come before the old. Every new question has a prequel, without which its existence holds no meaningful position in the present.

Winter is composed of memory. A memory with many names. Names otherwise have been forgotten. Forgotten among all things furious and maddening under the sun. The same sun that has shone its indifferent ray of warmth in the July of Srebrenica, in the March of the West Bank, in the October of Zurmat, in the February of Ankara, and here in a remote hillside in the middle of Anatolia. The same ridiculous sun.

iv.

Genesis I.

He was one.

He is three now.

What moved upon the darkness that covered the depth of the world

Like a wind over the terrible surface of the water

Became the word of

All origins under the sun

That became the flesh and the blood.

Names have shifted

From age to age

Then unutterable.

The breath that had given birth

To all the jarring ambivalence that breathe

Finalized the very meaning of His

Existence at the end of His final

Breath.

The sun covered its face.

Day’s shadow casts long

Down the valley.

Wind moves swift over the darkness

As the ancient time

We no longer remember.

What stirs the ripples of water

Snaking its lucidity through

The hollow gorge carved in

Is unknown in all utterances of words.

And the sun that once cast its

First light in the eyes of the One

Replicates its replenishing reflection

In another’s.

Fair it is now that no wonderous sigh

Escapes the onlookers’ mouths.

The thing that hath been,

it is that which shall be;

and that which is done is

that which shall be done:

and there is no new thing under the sun.

A wise king once lamented.

vi.

A woman comes near, and strips her skin.

Her breasts like tree bark

And her limbs like dripping icicles.

Her breath blooms and perishes

The brown and black petals of scattered flowers,

Left over from the passing summer.

She spreads her legs on the frozen earth.

Water breaks and gushes out between thin

Layers of ice sheets.

She writhes, clenches, twists, squirms, entwines

With a long scattered cry

Oozed out of her blood-culled lips

Ripened at the edge of her parched throat.

Then sprouts, piercing through her womb’s

Torn and bloodied opening,

A splattered pulse wrapped in

A grey, mulky film.

The Sun, the Lamb, the Morning Star,

The Lily in the Valley,

The Dripping Flesh impaled to a log.

vii.

Psalm 90

A prediction failed

And missed its target by miles.

Her dwelling place now in ruin

And her first morning prayer

Is but a ruthless extension

Of the night she had forgotten

To close her eyes.

What flourishes in the morning

Surely would perish in the evening,

But what blooms in the evening

Knows no withering in her heart.

A constant replacement

That recognizes neither the past

Nor its perilous sentiment.

Who knows the depth of anger

Springs from the fertile soil

Drenched with despair and loss?

Whose countenance must we

Lament so that all the passing

Of our days could somehow distribute

Our anguished silence evenly?

So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.

So teach us now.

So teach us immediately.

So teach us so that before each calling of our loved ones’

Fading names would not return to us

Empty and desolate

In our yearning ears.

Epilogue

The numbers of our days are

Measured in the numbers of our loss.

The numbers of our loss is counter-measured

By the numbers of their published numbers.

From one prayer hour to another,

The measure of each of our days is stirred

In hope, sentenced with dread, and buried in silence.

Because we are Philistines.

Because we shouted against them.

We die a thousand deaths.

Good Night, Mon Chéri

Mon, 04 Feb 2013 16:11:00 -0500

The Orion has journeyed to the west beyond the mountains now.

Light travels, someone once told me, many light years

to render its image in our vision. A residue of the past

our entire life put together cannot even measure now

lingers in the night sky. That’s how our night settles as

usual. Perhaps what we have sought in the brightness

of the day was as insufficient as the present never here

to console our solitude. None commences our beginning;

none rebukes our end. Our fear is constantly unjustified in

this continuous circle of uncertainty that unveils at every

breaking of a new dawn and at every setting of an old sun.

Mais ce soir n’est pas encore fini.

Un temps pour cette nuit d’hiver est fini maintenant.

Les étoiles ne brillera plus dans le ciel.

C’est vrai, chéri. Mais ce n’est pas encore le temps pour nos

fenêtres soient fermées. La nuit est trop craintifs pour habiter.

Oui, oui, chérie. Mais jusqu’à quand??

Jusqu’au matin.

Remember our morning, Dear, when all our lights have failed

our visions to sustain our minds for any traceable thought.

There might be an answer we have sought in all our tiring

days until our feet have come to rest at this foothill. This

winter’s journey, too, must come to its justifiable end when

no dwelling place awaits us beyond that snow-capped peak.

Quelle agitation, quelle tristesse.

Pour qui?

Je ne sais pas, chérie. Je ne sais plus. Nul ne le sait.

And there are no more stars to trace, to lure our night to sleep.

And no more stories to remember our journey. A certain

absence redeems silence from this solitude we no longer

partake with our parched voices.

Alors, bonne nuit, mon chéri.

And good-night, my Dear.

An Evening in Exile

Mon, 04 Feb 2013 16:10:26 -0500

The mountains in the west

Tripled its shade in the past hour.

The sky heavy with the day’s burden.

Nothing remotely closer to its remedy

Bears a counter-measure

Once seemed a plausible color

In one’s mind.

Mother sings old songs to her children

For a descending night that neither

Promises tranquility nor quiet hours

Of uninterrupted sleep.

Father smokes his old worries

Into a series of renewed flames

At his finger tips.

And peace, peace is an age-long lie

All knowingly accept at the price of

Their sanity.

Sweeter this lie in their ears

Than the terror of truth

Unbearable on our tongues.

Redemption is a far-fetched hope

Where our homeland is etched

In a marred carving of yesterday.

The names of our grandmothers,

Our great-grandmothers.

Our backyard garden no longer yields

Tomatoes and peppers now

Under the boot heels of new residents

Came unannounced with a paper in their hands,

Shaking and waving.

They turned our garden into

A green grass tended with a lawn mower

And dug a sky blue swimming pool

In the middle.

Our clothes turned a heap of trash,

Our carpets rolled,

Our books in an excellent use for starting a fire

In their fireplace.

Home that shuts its door and bolts behind us

Is no longer to be called home.

Not for us anymore.

A green wool blanket is a shared commodity

Where many pairs of our sock-less feet

Rub each other until a faint warmth

Is bearable enough for sleep.

An oversized jacket once fit someone perfectly

Is a rare luxury

We never imagined to be

In our possession

And thankful.

Tomorrow is yet another day

For this immeasurable grief.

God no longer says anything to us.

The same god whose name is invoked

In the prayers of those who took our

Home away;

The same god who hears their prayers

Hear our prayers, as well.

Their prayers are the only acceptable currency

Tendered in the ears of our god

Whose silence we accept without a choice

As the only answer admissible

In our cold night.

Jouissance

Mon, 04 Feb 2013 16:09:49 -0500

Mon baiser sur votre front.

Tranquillement.

Grave.

Personne ne suppose que votre incohérence.

Je parle mots

Ce silence de purge,

Déchirure au bord

De papier se raidit.

Une tapisserie.

Une coupe immobile.

Une existence

Du placement de vos mains.

Ni je respire

Votre rire jubilatoire

Pas plus que je sirote

Votre agonie silencieuse.

Votre accomplissement

Ou de la perte

Questions que dans les langues

De ceux dont les yeux

Jetant un regard sur

Mon existence.

Votre pâte mots

Contre mon visage

Dans la nuit.

Une répétition qui

Echoes pas de sens

Dans mes oreilles.

Le passage du temps

Seulement visible

Dans une décoloration

De ma peau.

Et vous, mon Amour, où etes-vous?

Dans vos yeux.

Sur votre langue.

A chaque instant transitoire

De votre mémoire diminue.

Aucun suffisante à la pointe

De votre doigt que des traces

Ces fils en saillie

Laçage ma surface.

Le beau fantôme de la révolte,

Des illuminés,

Des guerres glorieuses.

C’est moi.

Eulogy

Mon, 04 Feb 2013 16:09:08 -0500

— 1 February 2013, at the news of suicide bombing at the U.S. Embassy in Ankara, Turkey.

I hope there is a heaven they promised for you.

The river of wine.

Seven virgins.

And I hope you have an explanation or two

For the man whose life was the only price your holy act

Incurred to the world as you incinerated yourself.

He is lucky enough to hear your explanations at the least.

But his family and friends,

They don’t and will never be able to know you

Or hear your words,

And are deprived of the privilege

Of plucking your limbs out alive,

Gnawing at your bones,

Or stone you to the heaven you were so willing to go.

Instead, you are at your god’s paradise

That they promised

On your own act and consequence,

Drinking out of the river of wine

Indulging with the passion of flesh with seven virgins

For eternity.

Never mind the repulsion of the man you never bothered to ask

His permission to come along with you

Before you simply swept him away from this life.

And no, never mind the agony of those left behind him

Who could not even bid a proper farewell

Before this unseemly departure.

Insallah, my friend;

Massallah, my martyr.

May your god’s peace be with you

As your holy act has left

Yet another irreparable absence in this world.

May the paradise they promised is truly there for you

And may you live happily ever after

With the river of wine,

With seven virgins by your side.

May you walk gloriously and in honor

Among the company of those martyrs before you

Whose righteous acts are decorated with

A list of innocent men, women, and children

They felt no compelling urge

To consider, save, or protect

But to perish.

May your god of justice and righteousness

Forever be praised and honored

By your ultimate sacrifice

In his name.

The Beatitudes by a Dawn River

Mon, 04 Feb 2013 16:08:20 -0500

“Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

River runs quiet at dawn.

No light has yet broken

And nothing redeemable

Has yet woken to spit

Its first conscientious exhale

Of the day

Into a comprehensible murmur.

“Blessed are those who mourn: for they will be comforted.”

All the incorrigible paths of our

Dreams still have some time

Remaining to pursue their

Unfinished journeys in bed.

The night has not yet come

To adjourn her menace in

Silence.

“Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.”

For they inherit nothing

Corruptible, perishable, and bloody

In this world.

Nothing insane, absurd,

And incomprehensible.

Nothing embezzled, robbed,

And raped.

“Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness: for they will be satisfied.”

Violence moves quiet at dawn.

No answer in human heart suffices

Her hunger to stir all the unutterable

Anger strapped in one’s dream

Dreamed with open eyes.

“Blessed are the merciful: for they will be shown mercy.”

It’s always the remnant

That make an acceptable

Compromise that could endure

The advent light’s tedious progression.

There, there remains some time

For her still.

“Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.”

For there is the end of the night

At the end of a long waking hour,

Where the river runs quiet at dawn.

Dogs’ first barking.

Roosters’ first crowing.

Morning birds’ first fluttering.

“Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called children of God.”

One cannot ask for

A more precious gift

Than this.

“Blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

An Evening Scene in the Mountains

Mon, 04 Feb 2013 16:06:45 -0500

The evening prayer in the air,

Mid-winter wind screams past,

Pitch black mountains stand

Unmoved,

Leafless branches rattle,

And my cigarette burns

In fierce amber

Deep into my fingers.

Love is now

But a perplexing warmth

For my sanity rushed into silence.

Our prayers are

no longer private now.

Someone has a periodic urge

To publicize his pray with loud speakers

On behalf of

All those who can no longer

Utter a word

For themselves.

Or he thinks the prayers

Pulsating in our minds

Are unworthy of hearing

Even with our own ears.

A virtue down in the valley

For those whose lives must

Rub each other in friction.

A constant need for someone

other than themselves

To interfere

To maintain their sanity.

A demand one cannot forsake

To remedy her wretchedness.

A compulsory for the solitary.

Or rather a nuisance.

Love is now

But a cold fettered twitch

In my memory pale.

If blood is but a necessity

For justice unanswered

And a war but a divine reproach

To cease the impure,

Let our mothers thrash

Their nursing children’s heads

Against the walls.

Let their spilled and splattered

Grey matter testify that

All the answered that need to be answered

Are already answered

And nothing more.

And let the mountains stand where they stand,

The wind blow whence they disappear,

And someone else continue his prayers

For we whose words scatter into

A perplexing darkness of the night

Bearing comfort

Neither for anyone else’s heart

Nor for our own.

Love is now

But a residue of

All things wasted and asunder.

Exile

Mon, 04 Feb 2013 16:05:35 -0500

He carries his country

Wherever he goes

On his back.

A tattered piece of

Luggage,

Tainted leather,

Worn with weather.

Like his mother’s out-of-tune

Lullabies

In a strange tongue

Cut in his fading memory

Under the moon.

Like his Grandfather’s tiring

Grumbles

In the tune of

Strange smell from

The food he knows

Neither the taste

Nor the origin.

Like his own unutterable

Last name

No one seems to pronounce

properly.

He carries his country

Wherever he goes

On his back.

And he bears no other

meaning.

II.

The decorum of Her

Beauty fades, and

No word left within

For the ignorant

Whose tongue is being sold

For profit.

Like hyenas roaming

in the absence of

Preys, She

Sinks Her teeth in the flesh

of his soul.

Like a tale of a far away land

Where strange tongues make strange

Love

Only being told by he who had never

Set foot in that land,

Her imaginations lack

aspirations

Her creativity is void of

freshness

And Her reasoning omits all the

Landmarks.

She only fumes with Her

bottomless

Shame.

Her heaven is his hell.

Standing by the Old Sea at Night

Mon, 04 Feb 2013 16:04:16 -0500

Out of despair,

I stir the song you once

taught me. And tonight, I

improvise only a portion

I can remember,

humming the tune. The

moonlight curls under the curtains,

the stars pierce through

the night, adding their tunes to

my brokenness. Your breath no

longer rippling over the night

wind. Your gaze no longer

means the redemption for

the living. Every wave that

crashed at the cliff below signaled

the brutality one’s end could throw

against the immovable presence of

the Time. I came to the sea

to seek your silence’s

meaning. The stars

are ripped of their myths, the moon

holds no habitat for the lunatics. What

once aspired the endless wandering

Of our souls now anchored deep

within the dark waves foaming

their tireless quarrels.

No one is listening.

Iliad lost its poetry.

Just another ruin that decorates

the Aegean. Odyssey’s seven

years journey home a ridicule

under the new moon. The wrath of gods

define nothing but a futile

nostalgia of our impurity. We all dreamed of

the dreams already come and gone and

would never never return. Did not our

miseries once had the origins

and due interpretations that we could

sing lullabies to put our little ones

to sleep, to put out our sobriety

into a drunken stupor?

So come, Homer, and you, too,

Euripides. Whose songs must we

muse in our desolate nights

now? Tell me. Tell us.

Did you not once believe the gods

whose affairs were grander than

the idiosyncrasy of our idle days and

predictable maps, gods whose

fury remained fearful and inflicted

a sense of terror in our numbing

hearts, gods whose names decorated

now unchangeable boundaries

of the land with their conflicted

honors, whose heroes

fought against the foes of justice and

security, of the immeasurable strength

and despair?

A Quiet Night, My Dear

Mon, 04 Feb 2013 16:02:52 -0500

Coldness is drenched with

the moonlight. Trees

Stand breathless. No wind stirs

their shadows. The river is

frozen to silence. Stories have

ripened in winter’s

paleness after summer’s

suffocating dazzles are

bleached out. No pilgrim’s feet come

under their feet. And

reverence is but a faint

memory in the frozen river, my Dear.

Frozen yogurt and

berries. Two cups of

coffee. That’s how things could come

to an end.

I speak no more in riddles,

she said. Well, my Dear,

the measure of the distance in

between the things spoken

by your thin lips and those by

your eyes of fading colors

composed riddles in

me. Precisely.

iii.

To remember is a curse every

soul bears, yet

to not remember is a weight

no living existence

could endure in sanity. That’s

how I sought after

you, my Dear, until all the lights in the

world have gone blind, and

that’s where all comes to

a halt. That’s when all becomes

dark trace of watermarks

under a thin surface of ice.

iv.

Rumors of wars have come and

gone as an untimely

departure of the missed train. Nothing

worth waiting for waits

for us as we draw our breath from the

fading trace of night fog, my Dear, does it not?

A distance away, somewhere down in

the valley, lights flicker in

a muffled resonance of music, laughter, and

clapping. At least,

someone’s life is warm and happy to

endure this night, my Dear.

This Is As Far As I Come

Mon, 04 Feb 2013 16:00:52 -0500

This is as far as I come, and I

come no more.

Perhaps, I should not, but I

utter your name once more

as if you are right by me.

Silence is all the same whether or not you are here with me.

After this one step, I

come no nearer.

Where my memory strides I

am in pace no longer.

Your fading scent in this bed is but a stir

of madness my night hours are insufficient to endure.

et l’amour sur tes lèvres

reste suspendu dans l’air.

I turn away now without a mourning,

without a promise of return.

It was your gaze that broke my first morning,

and there is no more run

for what is breaking anew in my eyes.

To all the fairest in this world, I now close my eyes.

Uncle Mutlu’s Turkish coffee fortune reading. An amazing...

Sun, 30 Dec 2012 09:15:40 -0500

Uncle Mutlu’s Turkish coffee fortune reading. An amazing storytelling by this lady.

Photo

Sun, 30 Dec 2012 07:43:29 -0500

Photo

Sun, 30 Dec 2012 07:34:14 -0500

A Quiet Night, My Dear

Sun, 30 Dec 2012 06:56:00 -0500

Coldness is drenched with

the moonlight. Trees

Stand breathless. No wind stirs

their shadows. The river is

frozen to silence. Stories have

ripened in winter’s

paleness after summer’s

suffocating dazzles are

bleached out. No pilgrim’s feet come

under their feet. And

reverence is but a faint

memory in the frozen river, my Dear.

Frozen yogurt and

berries. Two cups of

coffee. That’s how things could come

to an end.

I speak no more in riddles,

she said. Well, my Dear,

the measure of the distance in

between the things spoken

by your thin lips and those by

your eyes of fading colors

composed riddles in

me. Precisely.

iii.

To remember is a curse every

soul bears, yet

to not remember is a weight

no living existence

could endure in sanity. That’s

how I sought after

you, my Dear, until all the lights in the

world has gone blind, and

that’s where all comes to

a halt. That’s when all becomes

dark trace of watermarks

under a thin surface of ice.

iv.

Rumors of wars have come and

gone as an untimely

departure of the missed train. Nothing

worth waiting for waits

for us as we draw our breath from the

fading trace of night fog, my Dear, does it not?

A distance away, somewhere down in

the valley, lights flicker in

a muffled resonance of music, laughter, and

clapping. At least,

someone’s life is warm and happy to

endure this night, my Dear.

My nightly walk in Tandoğan, Ankara.

Tue, 11 Dec 2012 14:04:04 -0500

My nightly walk in Tandoğan, Ankara.

a poem i should not have written at 4:30 am

Fri, 30 Sep 2011 03:40:06 -0400

i paint this night with dots and

lines

over linen and

silk

flowing my memory like

quiet Sava.

stars came down that

night

under the bridge by

the terminal, and i

lifted each

through my fingers,

dripping pale and

cold.

at the end of my

sigh

just like the end of that

road,

walking endless

hours,

you were still nowhere to be

found.

whose name must i

utter now

so that i

may wash yours

away and

whose countenance must i

gaze

that i

may close my eyes and

no longer remember that

fair hand of yours

hushing my unrefined

confession.

tonight, i

am walking down that

dusty road to

meet you and

be back by that

river.

come tomorrow i

promise, i

won’t be here,

either,

dripping each night through

fingers.

movement in C major

Fri, 30 Sep 2011 03:32:00 -0400

fingers glide over the glossy surface until there is

a note to drop. what filters through nothing

sharped, nothing flatted. a wondering thought

swirls around at a juncture where her memory is

detached from all the emotions in context. a movement,

unexpected. a cacophony. pause. from adagio to

andante, and then a swift movement to vivace.

again, pause. barely traceable tremor at the tip of

her fingers resting momentarily for another heart to

pound. pause. pound. pause. pound. pause. pound.

pause. pound. pause. pound. pause. pound. pause.

her breath discords her movement, her heart her

eyes, her tongue her reading, reading, reading,

reading, submerging deeper in a repeated succession

in a measured length to an infiltrating depth where

her darkest commotion within emerges in the violence

of flood, abrupt, sweeping and uncontrollable, extending

platysma, constraining trapezius. and then, vivacissimo

to allegrissimo, then to presto, then to prestissimo and

then to an explosive collapse where all the sighs between

her lips dispersed in a distant memory. a drift.

pause.

love letter

Fri, 30 Sep 2011 03:30:15 -0400

love letter