Helen, you look like a new wound tonight. Your lips rubbed raw by one thirsty for your skin. Helen, the red you wear begs you for mercy. Your cloak of blood brings even the night to shame. I cannot speak the language that asks for you to take it in its mouth. I know […]
Tag: love letters
Your name is zikr
“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.”
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 […]
Postcards from Istanbul /8
“She was like a landscape you see from the train, and you want to stop just there.” – Graham Greene, ‘The Living Room” What a difference a smile makes. How it shifts landscapes and ruins the topography of the heart. And how it does and undoes the shoelaces of our reserve, our restraint, and […]
Postcards from Istanbul /7
“You are a colander, sometimes losing things. Sometimes what keeps you alive is a mystery.” – Aracelis Girmay Another night, another room, in another hotel in a city so many thousands of miles away. In my life so often it occurs to me that the more I love, the further the object of my […]
