this loud idiot
with a nasty song, say the birds
garbage truck
thickly rushing north
the clouds of seven o'clock
I swear I'll rise soon
unlike you, thick clouds
this warm bed won't let me go
have fun in the north
a crow might alight
on this paper if I drink
just a bit more wine
liquefied
open and indifferent
the world in my hand
in the murky stream
each leaf oddly bears fallen
its distinction
just standing here
minding my own business
better beware still
Seen this morning, October 17: shadows and early sunlight on the slowly reddening trees. A bit of frost and a belt of dew drops beneath my window sill. A ghostly bird, maybe a seagull (so, definitely a ghost), white and alone in the morning sky, soaring high; it glides and becomes invisible under my gaze. My dreams from last night, messy, broken, unremembered.
Yet seeing is essential. I don't know if it suffices for the end, but it must be the beginning. Nothing else does it.
this beautiful
silence at the edge of sleep
is where I'll find you
I'll draw a blanket
over the shivery moon
and myself tonight
why don't I pluck
and keep those shiny things
you call eyes
wouldn't go to bed
without first making myself
sick with dancing
my good deed today
to see russet apple slices
in a gold-rimmed bowl
blue morning mists
I'm curled up in the warmth
of one hawk's eye
inexplicably
bursting with flowers
a smug little cactus
it's been a while since
I last opened myself
and looked inside
battle morning
feathered skies
and I'm a falcon
like a vast runway
the clouds show me where to land
once I fall asleep
pine incense
to simulate mountains
pictures for family
on the shore down under
weeping for time that can't be crossed
how true that dream was
hour of the cigar
peace and boiling rage
in the land
the wind left with all
the dried stalks of Queen Ann's lace
on my balcony
"But life has turned out differently, God knows why. My old furniture is rotting in the barn where I left it, and I myself, yes, my God, I have no roof over me, and it is raining into my eyes."--The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge, Rilke
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All photos & artwork © Duru Güngör
London, September - December 2021