Poetry International Poetry International
Poem

Enis Batur

BRANCHINGS OUT

I’m up against the end now.
They're still talking to the doctor:
my lungs are burnt out, become two
small scraps of charred sponge: my heart
labors on like a worn-out pump; I know
nothing more can be done to keep my
hands from trembling — as ill luck would
have it, my brain, which I exhausted year
after year, keeps ticking right along with
never a skip, making them think. Maybe
it’s just me, but they seem to resent seeing
their wheels spinning more slowly than mine
do at my age…Yet I’ve long been ready
to go, is there any place left that I haven’t
seen? For many years now I haven’t worried
about how or to what extent the work I’ve
done would be appreciated when I’m gone,
if anything can be gained from old age, it’s
this. To tell the truth, nothing anymore
seems to mean a thing, defeated hopes,
broken dreams, fancies swept away if not
by wind by flood onto a path of no return.
For the book you’ve written about me
I thank you, that big book of yours,
which my assistant, who, after spending
thirty years at my side has become
an irony machine, thankfully read aloud
to me for four days straight, with her
frequent stops, not to miss a chance, of
course, to poke fun at your work. I can’t
begrudge her that small luxury, since my
eyes fail to make out even the large letters
and my poor hearing forces her to shout out
while reading. Besides, it was she, and no
other, who collected and archived every bit
of writing about me during our thirty years
together; even if she doesn’t know me better
than I do myself, the time came when she
had to remember everything better than
I could, maybe that's why she sees all
you’ve done as emptlabor. I, on the other
hand, was excited by your point of view,
and comments. If I'm not mistaken, you’re
a bit arrogant to see yourself as my superior,
as you do. You may be right, of course,
but true strength and power resides in not
letting it be sensed. When I was young
I didn’t think much of anybody, as I grew
older I came to think less of myself, then
came the day when I deemed important
anyone who managed to put two stones
together to get through such a challenging life,
in truth, I never thought I’d live this long.
For me old age has brought a different kind
of haughtiness, the world laid down such a
thick crust of scum inside me that I couldn’t
see why anyone should be afraid to go to Hell.
At one point in your book you ask: “To
what conception of the Art of Poetry should
such heedless, spiraling flow be connected?”
I wouldn’t know that, nor should I be expected
to: I wrote and the wide stream of questions
drew my writing into its bed and swallowed
it while I looked intently into the water.
I couldn’t have given you or anyone else
immediate leave to pour out your rules
and laws. “How did he come to found this
city then raze it, why was he so scared he
hid behind the walls he’d erected, the crowd
released from within, the silence filling
the streets, from where did he rip and drag
them out” — the pathways leading out from
me, time came, blended in with those opening
up to me. The songs I crafted held no salvation,
I knew. I was aware that the idols I sculpted
would answer no prayer. Once I’d set forth,
I couldn’t turn back. Now, with a few poetry
collections under your belt and advanced,
if wild, Literary Theories, you rip loose and
unravel what I’ve knit and framed. I know
those bridges, I’ve crossed a few too. Having
traveled a ways, I saw that I’d come once again
to the same bridge, while walking from this
end to the other one I realized that dialectics
was an empty conviction. That’s why you ask
will ask, “Which Art of Poetry” to start
your sentence: question, interpretation and
exhaustion all interlocked like the sharp teeth
of a merciless trap set to catch a wild beast.
That’s the question, but isn’t this the problem?
When do we learn who the prey is, will the
identity of the hunter be immediately revealed?
All works arise from a complex order, no
sooner do you have the result than an illusory
chain clangs within consciousness: have I
got there yet? In the midst of this doubt
stands fear, waiting and gnawing away. If
words fail to line up on paper, they form
knots in the throat. And yet, as Paul Claudel
suddenly realized while observing his master,
what’s the Art of Poetry if not going up against
that white obstacle thrust toward our faces?
At twenty, I too crashed against it: suddenly
the line grew a blade sharp as a cleaver before
me, and I stretched out my neck beneath it:
most of those around me writing poetry stayed
blindly ignorant. I saw clearly at once from
whence their daring sprang. Of those, only
a few, pained, as I was, at being pushed up
against the wall, continued their combat with
the white: Oh, that pit made for only so many
letters to be sat side by side! Within those walls
drawn by order and measure, bereft of light
and breath, and even more deadlocked after
the “Crisis in Verse” of a hundred years before,
we sensed that if we failed to shatter those
golden laws of numbers, we’d strangle in
our studies. Ten years went by before I came
upon“Lord Chandos’ Letter” — at first I
broke all my pens, then I fixed them. Going
from one turning point to the next one, I
closely examined each detail that added
more to the darkness in my head. Forgive me,
I think you can’t possibly imagine that period:
obviously what’s failed to strike you as a
challenging option is to pursue a path against
those readers who unquestioningly equated
beautiful writing with the ornate image in
a milieu that suffered any discussion of poetry
only in proportion to the degree of sadness
or passion it aroused in them. Yet I do recall
an occasion when Melih Bey could bear it
no longer: “At a time when it has become
much harder to write good poetry,” he noted
in one of his pieces, “how is it that we come
across so many poems written so easily?”
I wonder if it is indeed the readers in every
language who shape poetry and determine
its evolutionary flow: can it be that once it’s
read, poetry is then written so, is still being
written so — I always viewed the problem
as  just the reverse: when not to be read is
what’s needed most for poet gentlemen who
are able to take the risk and don’t mind withdrawing
into themselves for a short or perhaps longer
time, moving on is at least possible: they’ll
either find something or get lost on the page.
“As to the Book,” if no house ever rises in
the emptiness from my letters — life does
hold other respectable options. That’s how
I moved on to my forties and fifties, as the
winters turned toward spring and fall, I myself
founded my writing. What does everything
matter, I let everything pour into a key text:
That you find my thoughts on poetry romantic,
if not childish, I understand. As my assistant
read out that section and at one point  began
to laugh, when I inquired why, she at first
fell silent, and then, perhaps hoping to
comfort me, said this: “I laughed because
it struck me as strange that his sole means
of support to counter your argument should be
based on your own words.” Since she’s a
stickler for correct sentences, you two would
have butted heads on that matter too, if I’m
not mistaken. But let’s get back to the subject,
I can leave off my usual crab-crawl — you
thought me pedantic to have gone beyond
ars longa, vita brevis, the necessity for which
you saw as debatable: “If History pruned
and pared down a sentence, it must have
known something.” A sentence of yours that
I like: an elegant, indeed, a poetic proposition,
while you could never rival Hippocrates,
you still don’t fall too short of his line. Yet
to my eyes such elegance doesn’t make your
approach relevant: what may have paved the
way to our Present Time and sowed the seeds
of that ruthless future are those facile prunings
of History. Do you know, after a certain age
I cast off the intermediaries from my world,
jettisoned the ballast from my library: the true
texts are the same as prime numbers: in time
others were  added or deleted — and it’s this
that you foresee for my writing, if I’m not
mistaken your book points to a shortcut for
reading, there, in a way, you draw a moral
from the brevity of life: your problem, your
credo, is to weed all complexity from me,
you must’ve reckoned that if only you could
plunge in a scalpel and crop that trunk, which
so obviously and uselessly keeps branching out,
thus reducing it to one or  two main limbs,
then everything would be so much clearer
and plain to see. Intention, no doubt, is highly
important in the course of such undertakings.
Were you bent on making a stump out of it
or on leaving it hanging: amassed and thus
allowed to flourish? I can’t say why, but on
hearing your appraisals ringing in my ears
the feeling swept over me that you were out
to get even with me, I could only think how
little time you needed to get tarred up inside —
oh well, I guess I got it all wrong. Only you
can conclude what’s right, you alone can
weigh out your true intent, I just felt that you
got carried away — which is probably why
you were unable to sense the ache in my Tree
text: you couldn’t pinpoint the exact spot, yet
it’s one of the hearts at the end of long,
biographical capillaries you thought you had
to muddle up: how could you miss seeing it
as the simple and forthright working-out of a
self-portrait? So you took it as a tree facing
a lens, how could it have been anything other
than a map of my writing rising from the ground?
We first met face-to-face in the winter, I saw
and knew it at once from afar: my face in
the mirror a manifestation of letters. I circled
it for days, touched its skin, and gave ear to
its sounds. The light it consumed, the solid
darkness it released when closely observed —
not a word passed between us. Later on, I went
back. I wrote. Carefully study it now, if it’s
slipped your sight, look and perceive: that tree
is formed of many trees: inklings of oak, willow,
horse chestnut, magnolia — tenuous words
that flow out of a single surface can’t be read
at one sitting. Every poet is himself a bit of
Abraham, and of Ishmael, more than just
a bit. Call me what you will, no matter how
many letters you use  to spell my name,
that’s long been my home base, assured in
its incertitude, remember here the alchemist’s
words: “You couldn’t have come from the
East, nor can you be headed toward the West:
Having sprung from the map of your
disappearance, don’t stop, vanish once again.”
I’m up against the end now. My life, from
start to finish, passed in birdsong. Asked now,
I’d sum up by saying that everything might
really have happened during a winter of sleep,
if I say everything, yes, that’s it, no more or
less: I’ve never been heedless, if only I’d
been content to see the scum on the earth’s
surface, but no, I didn’t hold myself back from
descending into the cesspits of History, pursuing
shortcuts you rather pompously point out:
crushed as I was between the purulent diction
underlying the mask of big politics and the
burlesque conceit of the petty, I felt ashamed of
my own kind. You’ve noted in my travels a
false backing away from ego, and on that
I’m with you: I went off to rub my salt into
other cities, that’s true, and is why I sailed
through clouds in pointless fears, but don’t
forget: each time, from every journey, I returned
and locked away my unrest inside a few streets,
a few rooms. So my map is closed-in, cramped,
sparsely populated: I heard what was said
of me and reached a point where I learned
not to heed a single word. I don’t need to
know those who’ve judged me, if they’d
constructed an enviable bridge of meaning
while they lived, they’d have stayed silent:
Do you imagine that any life is right, ha,
don’t rely on the mistakes I made to help you
know. If I’m up against my end, not an ounce
of all I’ve learned remains here in my hands,
yet the Art of Poetry has left an indelible trace
on my soul: I was led to believe that beneath
this mortal dome a few of my pleasing
strains might linger on.

Dal Budak

Dal Budak

Hayatımın sonuna dayandım artık. Hekimler hâlâ
konuşuyorlar: Ciğerlerim kavrulmuş, kömürleşmiş
iki ufak sünger parçasına dönüşmüş; yüreğim
yorgun bir pompa gibi çalışıyor; ellerimin
titremesinin önünü almanın hiçbir olanağını
kalmadığım biliyorum — kara bahtıma bakın ki,
yıllar yılı yorduğum beynimde en ufak tekleme
olmaması onları düşündürüyor. Bana öyle geliyor
belki, ama içerlediklerini sanıyorum, bu yaşta
çarklarının benimkilerden ağu döndüğünü gördükleri
için... Oysa çoktan hazırım ben buradan gitmeye,
gitmediğim başka bir yer mi kaldı? Çoktandır
tasalandırmaz oldu beni, yaptıklarımın ardımdan ne
kadar nasıl değerlendirileceği, uzun yaşamanın bir
kazancı varsa o da budur: Gerçekten de manâsı
kalmıyor hiçbir şeyin, umut yenik, düşler kırık,
hevesleri rüzgâr olmazsa sel alıp dönüşsüz yola
taşıyor.
Hakkımda yazmış olduğunuz kitap için teşekkür
ederim, otuz yıldır yanımdan ayrılmadığı için bir
ironi makinasına benzeyen yardımcım sağolsun,
yüksek sesle dört günde okudu bana o koskoca
çalışmanızı, iki de bir araya girerek emeğinizi
sarakaya almayı elbette ihmâl etmedi. Gözlerim iri
harfleri bile seçemiyor birkaç yıldır, güç belâ
duyduğum içiri neredeyse bağırarak okumak
zorunda kalıyor ya, bu kadar lüksü ona fazla
görmemek gerekir.
Kaldı ki, otuz yıllık birlikteliğimizde hakkımda
yazılan her satırı toplayan, arşive kaldıran bir başkası
değildi; gün geldi beni benden iyi tanımasa bile
herşeyi benden iyi anımsamak durumunda kaldı,
herhalde bundandır, yazdıklarınızı büsbütün boş
çaba görmesi. Beni tam tersine, heyecanlandırdı
bakış açınız, yorumlarınız. Büyükleniyorsunuz bir
parça, yanılmıyorsam kendinizi benim üstümde
görüyorsunuz. Haklı olmasına haklı olabilirsiniz de,
bunu sezdirmemektedir asıl güç, güçlülük. Gençken
kimseyi beğenmezdim pek, yaşım ilerleyince
kendimi beğenmez oldum, gün geldi böylesine zorlu
bir hayatın içinden iki taşı üstüste koyarak geçmeyi
başarmış herkesi önemsedim, bu kadar yaşayacağım
doğrusu aklıma gelmezdi: Yaşlılık bende farklı bir
kibir yarattı. Dünya öylesine kaim bir kir tabakası
kurdu ki içimde. Cehenneme gitmekten neden
korkulsun, anlayamadım. Kitabınızın bir noktasında
soruyorsunuz: Hangi Şiir Sanatı anlayışına
bağlanabilir bu sarmal düzende delidolu akış?
Bilemiyorum bunu, doğrusu benim bilmemi
bekleyemez de kimse: Yazdım ve yazımı yatağına
alıp yutan büyük soru suyunu yakından gördüm.
Bırakamazdım ne size ne başkasına, kurallar yasalar
döküversin bir çırpıda: Bu kenti nasıl kurmuş ve
yıkmış, neden bunca korkmuş ve diktiği surların
arkasında gizlenmiş, içinden boşalan kalabalığı,
sokaklarını dolduran sessizliği nereden söküp
getirmiş, benden açılan yollar bana açılanlara an
gelip karışmıştır. Yaktığım türkülerin kurtarıcı bir
anlamı yoktu, biliyordum. Yonttuğum putlardan
hiçbir yakarıya karşılık gelemeyeceğinin
farktndaydım. Yola çıkmış bulundum, geri
dönemedim. Şimdi siz ya da ötekiler, künyenizde
bir iki şiir kitabı, Edebiyat üzerine gelişkin oysa

hoyrat teoriler, çözüp söküyorsunuz, çatıp
ilmeklediklerimi. Tanırım o köprüleri, bazılarının
üzerinden ben de geçmiştim. Nice yol aldıktan sonra
gördüm ki gene ayın köprüye varmışım, bu ucundan
öbürüne yürürken anladım ki eytişim boş inanmış.
Ondandır soruyorsunuz, soracaksınız: Hangi Şiir
Sanatı diye başlayan cümlenizde soru ve yorum ve
yorgunluk biribirine kenetleniyor, bir yaban hayvanı
için hazırlanmış amansız tuzağın sivri dişleri gibi.
Soru o ama, sorun şu değil mi: Avın kim olduğunu
ne zaman öğreneceğiz, avcının kimliği hemen açığa
çıkacak mı? Her iş çetrefil bir düzenin içinden gelir,
sonucu aldığınız an bir sanrı zinciri şakırdar bilinçte:
Ben şimdi ulaştım mı? Bu şüphenin ortasında durur,
bekler ve kemirir korkusu insanın. Kelimeler kâğıda
dizilmekse boğazda düğümlenir. Nedir Şiir Sanatı
çünkü, Paul Claudel’in ustasına bakarken birden
anladığı gibi, beyazın gelip önümüze dayattığı
engelin üstüne varmak değilse? Yirmi yaşındayım,
ben de o durumla çarpıştım: Dize birden iyice
bilenip keskinleşmiş bir satıra döndü önümde ve
altına boynumu uzattım: Çoğu kör cahildi etrafımda
şiir yazanların, cüretlerinin geldiği yeri hemen
gördüm. Benim gibi duvara dayanıldığını tam
yanarak anlayanlardan ancak birkaçı sürdürdü
beyazla kavgayı: Ah, o belli sayıda harfin yanyana
dizileceği kuyu! Anlamıştık düzen ve ölçünün
çizdiği duyarların arasında ışıksız ve nefessiz, “Dize
Bunalımı”ndan yüzyıl sonra daha da kilitli, kırıp
dökemezsek altın sayı yasalarını: Odamızda
boğulacaktık.
On yıl geçti aradan ve "Lord Chandos’a Mektup"a
dayandı yolum — kalemlerimi önce kırdım, sonra
onardım. Dönemeçten dönemece giderken
kafamdaki karanlığı arttıran her ayrıntıya dikkatle
baktım.
Sizin o dönemi taşavvur edebilmeniz bana olanaksız
görünüyor, bağışlayın: Şiirden hüzünlendirdiği ya da
coşturduğu oranda sözedilebilen bir ortamda, güzel
yazı ve mücevher imge denklemine kayıtsız şartsız
bağlanmış okurun dikine giden bir yol çizmek
besbelli size zorlu seçim olarak gözükmemiş. Bir
seferinde Melih beyin dayanamadığını anımsıyorum
oysa:
“İyi şiir yazmanın gitgide zorlaştığı bir dönemde”,
diyordu yaklaşık olarak, bir yazısında: “Nasıl oluyor
da bunca kolay yazılmış şiirle karşılaşıyoruz?”
Bilmem her dilin şiirine biçim veren, evrim çizgisini
belirleyen okurlar mıdır, gerçekten de: Okunduğu
için mi öyle yazılmıştır, yazılmaktadır — ben sorunu
tersinden aldım hep: Gerektiğinde ökunmamayt göze
alabilen, kısa ya da uzun, bir süreliğine valnız
kalmaktan çekinmeyen şiir beyleri için yol hiç
değilse bir olasılıktır: Bulur ya da kaybolur sayfanm
üzerinde, “Kitaba Gelince”: Harflerimden bir ev
doğmayacaksa boşlukta — hayatta başka saygın
işler vardır. Kırkıma ellime böyle yürüdüm, kâh kış,
kâh iki bahardan biri, kendi yazımı kendim kurdum.
Herşey nedir ki, herseyi oturup bir anahtar metne
döktüm: Şiir hakkında düşündüklerimi çucııksu
değilse bile romantik bulduğunuzu anlıyorum.
O bölümü okurken bir ara gülmeye başladı
yardımcım, nedenini sorduğumda sustu önce, ola ki
gönlümü okşamak için şunu söyledi:
“Söylediklerinizin tersini ileri sürmek için tek
dayanak noktasının söyledikleriniz olması bana
tuhaf geldiği için güldüm” — düzgün cümleler
kurmaya bayılır, yanılmıyorsam, o konuda da
anlaşamazdınız. Konuya dönelim ama biz, her
zamanki gibi yengeç adımlarımla ilerlemesem de
boyunca, kaygınız güdük kılmak mı, yoksa
beklemeye mi almak: Toplansın ve öyle serpilsin?
Neden bilmem, vargılarınız kulaklarımda birikirken
birşeylerin acısını çıkarmak istiyorsunuz duygusuna
kapılıverdim, zift kaplamış erkenden içini, diye
düşünmeden yapamadım — herhalde hepten
yanıldım. Hangisi doğrudur bunu en iyi siz ölçebilir,
amacınızı asıl siz tartabilirsiniz sonuçta, bana
yazarken kapılmışsınız gibi geldi — ola ki bundan,
Ağaç metnimin içindeki ağrıyı farkedemediniz:
Görememişsiniz tam neresidir yeri, oysa hallaç
pamuğu
dağıtmaktan geri durmadığınız uzun yaşamöyküsel
damarların dayandığı yüreklerden biridir: Nasıl
olmuş da kavrayamamışsınız, düpedüz ve dümdüz
bir otoportre çalışmasıdır o, siz objektifin önündeki
bir ağaç sanmışsınız, zeminden benîm yazı haritamın
belirdiği apaçık ortada değil mi? Onunla kış vakti
karşılaşmıştık, uzaktan görür görmez tanımıştım:
Aynada yüzüm hurufî. Günlerce dolandım etrafında,
dokundum tenine, ürperdim. Geceler oldu ben
doldum, dibine oturdum ve seslerine kulak verdim.
Aldığı ışık, içine aldığı ve yakından bakıldığında
saldığı katı karanlık, birlikte tek kelime etmedik,
sonraydı: Döndüm, yazdım. Dikkatle inceleyin
şimdi, kaçmışsa gözünüzden bakın, anlayın: O ağaç
pek çok ağaçtan olmuştur, mürekkep: Meşe, söğüt,
atkestanesi, çınar, manolya — bir çırpıda kimse
okuyamaz İd tek bir yüzden akıp giden hercai
kelimeleri.
Her şair biraz İbrahim’idir kendisinin, birazdan fazla
İsmail'i. Nasıl çağırırsanız çağırın beni, adımı kaç
olur —Ars lorsga vita brevis’ten sonrasını getirmemi
gerekliliği tartışılır bir malûmatfuruşluk saymışsınız:
“Tarih bir cümleyi budayıp kısaltmışsa bir bildiği
vardır” cümlenizi
sevdim: Şık, hatta şiirsel bir önerme sizinkisi,
Hipokrates’le yanşamasanız bile çok uzağına
düşmüyorsunuz hizanın. Gelgeldim, o şıklık
yaklaşımınızı anlamlı kılmaya yetmiyor benim
gözümde: Şimdiki Zamanımı'ı hazırlayan, şu
amansız geleceğin tohumunu atarı belki de Tarih'in
kolaycı kısaltmalarıdır. Biliyor musunuz, bir yaştan
sonra aracıları uzaklaştırdım dünyamdan,
kütüphanemden kum torbalarını attım: Asıl metinler
aynı asal sayılar: Zamanla onlara eklemiş, onlardan
çıkarmışlar — sizin dc yazım için öngördüğünüz bu,
yanılmıyorsam, kestirme okuma yolu gösteriyor
kitabınız, bir bakıma hayatın kısalığından kıssa
çıkarıyorsunuz orada: Derdiniz imanınız beni
karmamamdan ayıklamak, vurup neşteri
olabildiğince budarsam, dive akı! yürütmüşsünüz
anlaşılan, biriki anakoia indirgeyebil irsem o
gereksiz yere dallanıp budaklandığı aşikâr gövdeyi,
herşeyi daha duru ve yalın halinde görebiliriz.
Şüphesiz niyetin önemi büyük bu tür işlemler
harfle yazarsanız yazın, yerim yurdum çoktandır
belirsizliğinde belli, simyacının sözünü anımsayın
burada:
Ne Doğudan gelmiş olabilirsin sen, ne Batıya
gidiyor olabilirsin: Kayboluşunun haritasından çıkıp
geldin madem, durma yeniden kayboluşun ol.
Hayatınım sonuna dayandım artık. Bir ucundan bu
ucuna ömrüm kuş sesleri çıkararak geçti. Şimdi
sorulsa, herşeyin bir kış uykusunda gerçekleşmiş
olabileceği sonucuna varabilirim, herşey diyorsam,
ne eksik ne fazla: Aymaz olmadım asla, yeryüzünü
kaplayan pislikleri görmekle yetinseydim hiç
değilse, sizin bir tür
cakayla kısalticı yanma dikkat çektiğiniz Tarihin
lağımlarına inmekten geri durmadım, büyük
siyasetlerin maskesinin altında yatan irin dolu
ifadeyle küçüklerin bürlesk kibiri arasında ezilmiş,
kendi cinsinden utandım. Yolculuklarımda sahte bir
benliğimden cayış görmüşsünüz, bakın buna
katılırım: Başka kentlere en çok tuz basmak için
gittiğim doğrudur, sulara undandır açıldım,
bulutların içinden beyhude korkularla ondan geçtim,
unutmayın ama: Her seferden her seferinde döndüm
ve birkaç sokağa, birkaç odaya telâşlarımı kilitledim,
Haritam darmış, sıkışıkmış, nüfusum tenhaymış:
Hakkımda söylenenleri duydum ve hiçbir söze
aldırmamayı an geldi öğrendim: Beni yargılayanları
tanımasam da olur, imrenilmesi bir manâ köprüsü
kursalardı yaşarken, susarlardı: Doğru bir hayat var
mıdır sanıyorsunuz, onu heyhat benim
yanlışlarımdan çıkaramazsınız: Sonuma
dayandımsa, bütün öğrendiklerimden tek bir bilgi
durmuyor elimde avucumda, Şiir Sanatı ruhumda
silinmez bir iz bıraktı ama:
Şu fâni kubbenin altında benden birkaç hoş sedâ
kaldığına kandım.
Close

BRANCHINGS OUT

I’m up against the end now.
They're still talking to the doctor:
my lungs are burnt out, become two
small scraps of charred sponge: my heart
labors on like a worn-out pump; I know
nothing more can be done to keep my
hands from trembling — as ill luck would
have it, my brain, which I exhausted year
after year, keeps ticking right along with
never a skip, making them think. Maybe
it’s just me, but they seem to resent seeing
their wheels spinning more slowly than mine
do at my age…Yet I’ve long been ready
to go, is there any place left that I haven’t
seen? For many years now I haven’t worried
about how or to what extent the work I’ve
done would be appreciated when I’m gone,
if anything can be gained from old age, it’s
this. To tell the truth, nothing anymore
seems to mean a thing, defeated hopes,
broken dreams, fancies swept away if not
by wind by flood onto a path of no return.
For the book you’ve written about me
I thank you, that big book of yours,
which my assistant, who, after spending
thirty years at my side has become
an irony machine, thankfully read aloud
to me for four days straight, with her
frequent stops, not to miss a chance, of
course, to poke fun at your work. I can’t
begrudge her that small luxury, since my
eyes fail to make out even the large letters
and my poor hearing forces her to shout out
while reading. Besides, it was she, and no
other, who collected and archived every bit
of writing about me during our thirty years
together; even if she doesn’t know me better
than I do myself, the time came when she
had to remember everything better than
I could, maybe that's why she sees all
you’ve done as emptlabor. I, on the other
hand, was excited by your point of view,
and comments. If I'm not mistaken, you’re
a bit arrogant to see yourself as my superior,
as you do. You may be right, of course,
but true strength and power resides in not
letting it be sensed. When I was young
I didn’t think much of anybody, as I grew
older I came to think less of myself, then
came the day when I deemed important
anyone who managed to put two stones
together to get through such a challenging life,
in truth, I never thought I’d live this long.
For me old age has brought a different kind
of haughtiness, the world laid down such a
thick crust of scum inside me that I couldn’t
see why anyone should be afraid to go to Hell.
At one point in your book you ask: “To
what conception of the Art of Poetry should
such heedless, spiraling flow be connected?”
I wouldn’t know that, nor should I be expected
to: I wrote and the wide stream of questions
drew my writing into its bed and swallowed
it while I looked intently into the water.
I couldn’t have given you or anyone else
immediate leave to pour out your rules
and laws. “How did he come to found this
city then raze it, why was he so scared he
hid behind the walls he’d erected, the crowd
released from within, the silence filling
the streets, from where did he rip and drag
them out” — the pathways leading out from
me, time came, blended in with those opening
up to me. The songs I crafted held no salvation,
I knew. I was aware that the idols I sculpted
would answer no prayer. Once I’d set forth,
I couldn’t turn back. Now, with a few poetry
collections under your belt and advanced,
if wild, Literary Theories, you rip loose and
unravel what I’ve knit and framed. I know
those bridges, I’ve crossed a few too. Having
traveled a ways, I saw that I’d come once again
to the same bridge, while walking from this
end to the other one I realized that dialectics
was an empty conviction. That’s why you ask
will ask, “Which Art of Poetry” to start
your sentence: question, interpretation and
exhaustion all interlocked like the sharp teeth
of a merciless trap set to catch a wild beast.
That’s the question, but isn’t this the problem?
When do we learn who the prey is, will the
identity of the hunter be immediately revealed?
All works arise from a complex order, no
sooner do you have the result than an illusory
chain clangs within consciousness: have I
got there yet? In the midst of this doubt
stands fear, waiting and gnawing away. If
words fail to line up on paper, they form
knots in the throat. And yet, as Paul Claudel
suddenly realized while observing his master,
what’s the Art of Poetry if not going up against
that white obstacle thrust toward our faces?
At twenty, I too crashed against it: suddenly
the line grew a blade sharp as a cleaver before
me, and I stretched out my neck beneath it:
most of those around me writing poetry stayed
blindly ignorant. I saw clearly at once from
whence their daring sprang. Of those, only
a few, pained, as I was, at being pushed up
against the wall, continued their combat with
the white: Oh, that pit made for only so many
letters to be sat side by side! Within those walls
drawn by order and measure, bereft of light
and breath, and even more deadlocked after
the “Crisis in Verse” of a hundred years before,
we sensed that if we failed to shatter those
golden laws of numbers, we’d strangle in
our studies. Ten years went by before I came
upon“Lord Chandos’ Letter” — at first I
broke all my pens, then I fixed them. Going
from one turning point to the next one, I
closely examined each detail that added
more to the darkness in my head. Forgive me,
I think you can’t possibly imagine that period:
obviously what’s failed to strike you as a
challenging option is to pursue a path against
those readers who unquestioningly equated
beautiful writing with the ornate image in
a milieu that suffered any discussion of poetry
only in proportion to the degree of sadness
or passion it aroused in them. Yet I do recall
an occasion when Melih Bey could bear it
no longer: “At a time when it has become
much harder to write good poetry,” he noted
in one of his pieces, “how is it that we come
across so many poems written so easily?”
I wonder if it is indeed the readers in every
language who shape poetry and determine
its evolutionary flow: can it be that once it’s
read, poetry is then written so, is still being
written so — I always viewed the problem
as  just the reverse: when not to be read is
what’s needed most for poet gentlemen who
are able to take the risk and don’t mind withdrawing
into themselves for a short or perhaps longer
time, moving on is at least possible: they’ll
either find something or get lost on the page.
“As to the Book,” if no house ever rises in
the emptiness from my letters — life does
hold other respectable options. That’s how
I moved on to my forties and fifties, as the
winters turned toward spring and fall, I myself
founded my writing. What does everything
matter, I let everything pour into a key text:
That you find my thoughts on poetry romantic,
if not childish, I understand. As my assistant
read out that section and at one point  began
to laugh, when I inquired why, she at first
fell silent, and then, perhaps hoping to
comfort me, said this: “I laughed because
it struck me as strange that his sole means
of support to counter your argument should be
based on your own words.” Since she’s a
stickler for correct sentences, you two would
have butted heads on that matter too, if I’m
not mistaken. But let’s get back to the subject,
I can leave off my usual crab-crawl — you
thought me pedantic to have gone beyond
ars longa, vita brevis, the necessity for which
you saw as debatable: “If History pruned
and pared down a sentence, it must have
known something.” A sentence of yours that
I like: an elegant, indeed, a poetic proposition,
while you could never rival Hippocrates,
you still don’t fall too short of his line. Yet
to my eyes such elegance doesn’t make your
approach relevant: what may have paved the
way to our Present Time and sowed the seeds
of that ruthless future are those facile prunings
of History. Do you know, after a certain age
I cast off the intermediaries from my world,
jettisoned the ballast from my library: the true
texts are the same as prime numbers: in time
others were  added or deleted — and it’s this
that you foresee for my writing, if I’m not
mistaken your book points to a shortcut for
reading, there, in a way, you draw a moral
from the brevity of life: your problem, your
credo, is to weed all complexity from me,
you must’ve reckoned that if only you could
plunge in a scalpel and crop that trunk, which
so obviously and uselessly keeps branching out,
thus reducing it to one or  two main limbs,
then everything would be so much clearer
and plain to see. Intention, no doubt, is highly
important in the course of such undertakings.
Were you bent on making a stump out of it
or on leaving it hanging: amassed and thus
allowed to flourish? I can’t say why, but on
hearing your appraisals ringing in my ears
the feeling swept over me that you were out
to get even with me, I could only think how
little time you needed to get tarred up inside —
oh well, I guess I got it all wrong. Only you
can conclude what’s right, you alone can
weigh out your true intent, I just felt that you
got carried away — which is probably why
you were unable to sense the ache in my Tree
text: you couldn’t pinpoint the exact spot, yet
it’s one of the hearts at the end of long,
biographical capillaries you thought you had
to muddle up: how could you miss seeing it
as the simple and forthright working-out of a
self-portrait? So you took it as a tree facing
a lens, how could it have been anything other
than a map of my writing rising from the ground?
We first met face-to-face in the winter, I saw
and knew it at once from afar: my face in
the mirror a manifestation of letters. I circled
it for days, touched its skin, and gave ear to
its sounds. The light it consumed, the solid
darkness it released when closely observed —
not a word passed between us. Later on, I went
back. I wrote. Carefully study it now, if it’s
slipped your sight, look and perceive: that tree
is formed of many trees: inklings of oak, willow,
horse chestnut, magnolia — tenuous words
that flow out of a single surface can’t be read
at one sitting. Every poet is himself a bit of
Abraham, and of Ishmael, more than just
a bit. Call me what you will, no matter how
many letters you use  to spell my name,
that’s long been my home base, assured in
its incertitude, remember here the alchemist’s
words: “You couldn’t have come from the
East, nor can you be headed toward the West:
Having sprung from the map of your
disappearance, don’t stop, vanish once again.”
I’m up against the end now. My life, from
start to finish, passed in birdsong. Asked now,
I’d sum up by saying that everything might
really have happened during a winter of sleep,
if I say everything, yes, that’s it, no more or
less: I’ve never been heedless, if only I’d
been content to see the scum on the earth’s
surface, but no, I didn’t hold myself back from
descending into the cesspits of History, pursuing
shortcuts you rather pompously point out:
crushed as I was between the purulent diction
underlying the mask of big politics and the
burlesque conceit of the petty, I felt ashamed of
my own kind. You’ve noted in my travels a
false backing away from ego, and on that
I’m with you: I went off to rub my salt into
other cities, that’s true, and is why I sailed
through clouds in pointless fears, but don’t
forget: each time, from every journey, I returned
and locked away my unrest inside a few streets,
a few rooms. So my map is closed-in, cramped,
sparsely populated: I heard what was said
of me and reached a point where I learned
not to heed a single word. I don’t need to
know those who’ve judged me, if they’d
constructed an enviable bridge of meaning
while they lived, they’d have stayed silent:
Do you imagine that any life is right, ha,
don’t rely on the mistakes I made to help you
know. If I’m up against my end, not an ounce
of all I’ve learned remains here in my hands,
yet the Art of Poetry has left an indelible trace
on my soul: I was led to believe that beneath
this mortal dome a few of my pleasing
strains might linger on.

BRANCHINGS OUT

I’m up against the end now.
They're still talking to the doctor:
my lungs are burnt out, become two
small scraps of charred sponge: my heart
labors on like a worn-out pump; I know
nothing more can be done to keep my
hands from trembling — as ill luck would
have it, my brain, which I exhausted year
after year, keeps ticking right along with
never a skip, making them think. Maybe
it’s just me, but they seem to resent seeing
their wheels spinning more slowly than mine
do at my age…Yet I’ve long been ready
to go, is there any place left that I haven’t
seen? For many years now I haven’t worried
about how or to what extent the work I’ve
done would be appreciated when I’m gone,
if anything can be gained from old age, it’s
this. To tell the truth, nothing anymore
seems to mean a thing, defeated hopes,
broken dreams, fancies swept away if not
by wind by flood onto a path of no return.
For the book you’ve written about me
I thank you, that big book of yours,
which my assistant, who, after spending
thirty years at my side has become
an irony machine, thankfully read aloud
to me for four days straight, with her
frequent stops, not to miss a chance, of
course, to poke fun at your work. I can’t
begrudge her that small luxury, since my
eyes fail to make out even the large letters
and my poor hearing forces her to shout out
while reading. Besides, it was she, and no
other, who collected and archived every bit
of writing about me during our thirty years
together; even if she doesn’t know me better
than I do myself, the time came when she
had to remember everything better than
I could, maybe that's why she sees all
you’ve done as emptlabor. I, on the other
hand, was excited by your point of view,
and comments. If I'm not mistaken, you’re
a bit arrogant to see yourself as my superior,
as you do. You may be right, of course,
but true strength and power resides in not
letting it be sensed. When I was young
I didn’t think much of anybody, as I grew
older I came to think less of myself, then
came the day when I deemed important
anyone who managed to put two stones
together to get through such a challenging life,
in truth, I never thought I’d live this long.
For me old age has brought a different kind
of haughtiness, the world laid down such a
thick crust of scum inside me that I couldn’t
see why anyone should be afraid to go to Hell.
At one point in your book you ask: “To
what conception of the Art of Poetry should
such heedless, spiraling flow be connected?”
I wouldn’t know that, nor should I be expected
to: I wrote and the wide stream of questions
drew my writing into its bed and swallowed
it while I looked intently into the water.
I couldn’t have given you or anyone else
immediate leave to pour out your rules
and laws. “How did he come to found this
city then raze it, why was he so scared he
hid behind the walls he’d erected, the crowd
released from within, the silence filling
the streets, from where did he rip and drag
them out” — the pathways leading out from
me, time came, blended in with those opening
up to me. The songs I crafted held no salvation,
I knew. I was aware that the idols I sculpted
would answer no prayer. Once I’d set forth,
I couldn’t turn back. Now, with a few poetry
collections under your belt and advanced,
if wild, Literary Theories, you rip loose and
unravel what I’ve knit and framed. I know
those bridges, I’ve crossed a few too. Having
traveled a ways, I saw that I’d come once again
to the same bridge, while walking from this
end to the other one I realized that dialectics
was an empty conviction. That’s why you ask
will ask, “Which Art of Poetry” to start
your sentence: question, interpretation and
exhaustion all interlocked like the sharp teeth
of a merciless trap set to catch a wild beast.
That’s the question, but isn’t this the problem?
When do we learn who the prey is, will the
identity of the hunter be immediately revealed?
All works arise from a complex order, no
sooner do you have the result than an illusory
chain clangs within consciousness: have I
got there yet? In the midst of this doubt
stands fear, waiting and gnawing away. If
words fail to line up on paper, they form
knots in the throat. And yet, as Paul Claudel
suddenly realized while observing his master,
what’s the Art of Poetry if not going up against
that white obstacle thrust toward our faces?
At twenty, I too crashed against it: suddenly
the line grew a blade sharp as a cleaver before
me, and I stretched out my neck beneath it:
most of those around me writing poetry stayed
blindly ignorant. I saw clearly at once from
whence their daring sprang. Of those, only
a few, pained, as I was, at being pushed up
against the wall, continued their combat with
the white: Oh, that pit made for only so many
letters to be sat side by side! Within those walls
drawn by order and measure, bereft of light
and breath, and even more deadlocked after
the “Crisis in Verse” of a hundred years before,
we sensed that if we failed to shatter those
golden laws of numbers, we’d strangle in
our studies. Ten years went by before I came
upon“Lord Chandos’ Letter” — at first I
broke all my pens, then I fixed them. Going
from one turning point to the next one, I
closely examined each detail that added
more to the darkness in my head. Forgive me,
I think you can’t possibly imagine that period:
obviously what’s failed to strike you as a
challenging option is to pursue a path against
those readers who unquestioningly equated
beautiful writing with the ornate image in
a milieu that suffered any discussion of poetry
only in proportion to the degree of sadness
or passion it aroused in them. Yet I do recall
an occasion when Melih Bey could bear it
no longer: “At a time when it has become
much harder to write good poetry,” he noted
in one of his pieces, “how is it that we come
across so many poems written so easily?”
I wonder if it is indeed the readers in every
language who shape poetry and determine
its evolutionary flow: can it be that once it’s
read, poetry is then written so, is still being
written so — I always viewed the problem
as  just the reverse: when not to be read is
what’s needed most for poet gentlemen who
are able to take the risk and don’t mind withdrawing
into themselves for a short or perhaps longer
time, moving on is at least possible: they’ll
either find something or get lost on the page.
“As to the Book,” if no house ever rises in
the emptiness from my letters — life does
hold other respectable options. That’s how
I moved on to my forties and fifties, as the
winters turned toward spring and fall, I myself
founded my writing. What does everything
matter, I let everything pour into a key text:
That you find my thoughts on poetry romantic,
if not childish, I understand. As my assistant
read out that section and at one point  began
to laugh, when I inquired why, she at first
fell silent, and then, perhaps hoping to
comfort me, said this: “I laughed because
it struck me as strange that his sole means
of support to counter your argument should be
based on your own words.” Since she’s a
stickler for correct sentences, you two would
have butted heads on that matter too, if I’m
not mistaken. But let’s get back to the subject,
I can leave off my usual crab-crawl — you
thought me pedantic to have gone beyond
ars longa, vita brevis, the necessity for which
you saw as debatable: “If History pruned
and pared down a sentence, it must have
known something.” A sentence of yours that
I like: an elegant, indeed, a poetic proposition,
while you could never rival Hippocrates,
you still don’t fall too short of his line. Yet
to my eyes such elegance doesn’t make your
approach relevant: what may have paved the
way to our Present Time and sowed the seeds
of that ruthless future are those facile prunings
of History. Do you know, after a certain age
I cast off the intermediaries from my world,
jettisoned the ballast from my library: the true
texts are the same as prime numbers: in time
others were  added or deleted — and it’s this
that you foresee for my writing, if I’m not
mistaken your book points to a shortcut for
reading, there, in a way, you draw a moral
from the brevity of life: your problem, your
credo, is to weed all complexity from me,
you must’ve reckoned that if only you could
plunge in a scalpel and crop that trunk, which
so obviously and uselessly keeps branching out,
thus reducing it to one or  two main limbs,
then everything would be so much clearer
and plain to see. Intention, no doubt, is highly
important in the course of such undertakings.
Were you bent on making a stump out of it
or on leaving it hanging: amassed and thus
allowed to flourish? I can’t say why, but on
hearing your appraisals ringing in my ears
the feeling swept over me that you were out
to get even with me, I could only think how
little time you needed to get tarred up inside —
oh well, I guess I got it all wrong. Only you
can conclude what’s right, you alone can
weigh out your true intent, I just felt that you
got carried away — which is probably why
you were unable to sense the ache in my Tree
text: you couldn’t pinpoint the exact spot, yet
it’s one of the hearts at the end of long,
biographical capillaries you thought you had
to muddle up: how could you miss seeing it
as the simple and forthright working-out of a
self-portrait? So you took it as a tree facing
a lens, how could it have been anything other
than a map of my writing rising from the ground?
We first met face-to-face in the winter, I saw
and knew it at once from afar: my face in
the mirror a manifestation of letters. I circled
it for days, touched its skin, and gave ear to
its sounds. The light it consumed, the solid
darkness it released when closely observed —
not a word passed between us. Later on, I went
back. I wrote. Carefully study it now, if it’s
slipped your sight, look and perceive: that tree
is formed of many trees: inklings of oak, willow,
horse chestnut, magnolia — tenuous words
that flow out of a single surface can’t be read
at one sitting. Every poet is himself a bit of
Abraham, and of Ishmael, more than just
a bit. Call me what you will, no matter how
many letters you use  to spell my name,
that’s long been my home base, assured in
its incertitude, remember here the alchemist’s
words: “You couldn’t have come from the
East, nor can you be headed toward the West:
Having sprung from the map of your
disappearance, don’t stop, vanish once again.”
I’m up against the end now. My life, from
start to finish, passed in birdsong. Asked now,
I’d sum up by saying that everything might
really have happened during a winter of sleep,
if I say everything, yes, that’s it, no more or
less: I’ve never been heedless, if only I’d
been content to see the scum on the earth’s
surface, but no, I didn’t hold myself back from
descending into the cesspits of History, pursuing
shortcuts you rather pompously point out:
crushed as I was between the purulent diction
underlying the mask of big politics and the
burlesque conceit of the petty, I felt ashamed of
my own kind. You’ve noted in my travels a
false backing away from ego, and on that
I’m with you: I went off to rub my salt into
other cities, that’s true, and is why I sailed
through clouds in pointless fears, but don’t
forget: each time, from every journey, I returned
and locked away my unrest inside a few streets,
a few rooms. So my map is closed-in, cramped,
sparsely populated: I heard what was said
of me and reached a point where I learned
not to heed a single word. I don’t need to
know those who’ve judged me, if they’d
constructed an enviable bridge of meaning
while they lived, they’d have stayed silent:
Do you imagine that any life is right, ha,
don’t rely on the mistakes I made to help you
know. If I’m up against my end, not an ounce
of all I’ve learned remains here in my hands,
yet the Art of Poetry has left an indelible trace
on my soul: I was led to believe that beneath
this mortal dome a few of my pleasing
strains might linger on.
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