Nothing Remains the Same
Where could you be tonight, Sinatra?
Love and Marriage
Love and Marriage
A chant I heard reverberate
As far away as the length of the waves
I rode indisposed
When I was bound
To a remote island
Named Buyukada
The permanent content of what you mean
Transcends me the moment I kiss your lips
And I know that meaning is produced
Only in an unexpectedly rambunctious union
Succinctly, I dissect everything
Looking for generic terms I left
Back somewhere in Kadikoy
At nine o’clock sharp near the theater
Where I heard a beautiful young voice
Lamenting Istanbul in operatic tempos
Barbarossa Hayreddin Pasha
Fatih Sultan Mehmet
Jalal al-Din Rumi
All proceeded towards Istanbul again
Alas! Nothing remains the same
Everything is only revisited once again
Even the empty sunflower fields of Kutahya
Detach yourself, postmodern Kerouac,
From the vicissitudes of a stuporous life
Isolate yourself from mundane places
Where nothing transcends the ephemeral
I know that I will meet a deadline
Just because life manifests itself
Unintentionally in those experiences I weave
I thought my days could end
On a ship to Prince’s Island bound
Alas, a Russian girl took me aside
To recount her Icelandic memories
To a dismembered Moorish heart
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