Ever since she left she keeps being gone. It is as if we were notBut if I am unrealWhy is my flesh stained by reality The shy part of my wrist a plum-blue and yellowSkin she has known as obscenely as her fingers reaching inside of my mouth. This is not a case of distance…
Tag: Desire
Love in the time of separation
Amour, Time behaves differently around you; the way trees are around the time autumn comes around. Or how rowdy schoolboys turn into dulcet-toned sweethearts around the geography teacher who’s a dead ringer for Rita Hayworth. Time is not time around you. It is an imposter. Around you, time does not move like the staid tick…
Amour
This beauty your smile – like a piece of the sun, Laughter thick as cream Days endured I wait for you an unanswered prayer
Almost Holy
The longing for you is almost holy. Warm you sleep; your eyelids closing are the night coming for me. Inescapable love of lives, my lingering ache is the origami crane tucked in your breast. Doing undoing wills and possibilities: with each breath, life raises itself and with every exhale it returns. As it is with all…
Open your chest and let the birds out
“Shy goddess, My love, my one. Your name is zikr – My chest tightens.” Love replies, “It tightens. You should open quietly, to let the birds out. Hear yourself.”
It is very quiet, very tender today
Lover look, it is finally overcast The sky is heavy-bosomed Breasts burdened with unfed milk Four o’clock is six o’clock, five-thirty is seven The light closes so softly on the day Everywhere the trees wait, wait Birdsong minimises to a hush Snakes seek respite in the dank dark of fallen leaves There are goosebumps…
Postcards from Istanbul /10
“She broke up with Hao-hao, but he always tracked her down. Called her… Begged her to come back… Again and again. As if under a spell or hypnotized… She couldn’t escape. She always came back.” – Millenium Mambo 千禧曼波 (Hou Hsiao-Hsien 2001) This is the last of the nights I will spend here in…
Your name in my mouth
Where can I go with your name in my mouth? It has sewn me shut with no word to offer. I cannot, anymore, ask for a cup of tea, Say hello when I pick up the phone, Respond to my own name called out. I am the dumb mute that denies the world. To say…
Postcards from Istanbul /9
“You are always my concern. Nothing has happened to me to make me suddenly think more intensely of you… you, beautiful things and gloomy things are spread over my fleeting days” – Ingeborg Bachmann to Paul Celan May 1949 (unreceived letter) Mosaics are works of art comprising thousands of broken pieces. They are perfect symbols…
Proof
The crevice of my ear still carries the hint of your breath, shoulders bear the weight of bruising Your grip is stencilled into flesh, yet fingertips trace a trajectory of the spine with unbearable lightness A forensic nightmare, my body the whistle-blower of surrendered intimacies and forbidden trespasses The feral scent of our…
part-broken, part-whole 