Murat Nemet-Nejat
AN/KARA: MY KIND HEARTED
STEP MOTHER
Ankara.
An--: moment, second.
kara: black
Ankara:
Second black, not first.
An(a): mother.
kar: doing it.
kar: snow.
kar(a): to the snow.
kara: land.
kara: black.
K(i)r: prick.
kar(i): the snow.
kari: old crone.
Kirhane: prick house
next to our synagogue in Istanbul there was a prick house,
on wooden tables at the end of Yom Kippur
in the dark, in the intersection of our street and theirs,
the ladies of the night and their pimps left
glasses of water for us to drink
for free: Sebil.
Mysterious Cybil.
So civil-
Ized.
Realized.
thirty years later I went to the same spot.
the synagogue and its porch garden
(where I'd spend two evenings a year,
the twinkling lights mixing with the stars trough the Succah)
was all in ruins,
the rusting gate ajar,
and a red rooster was strolling at home among the lunar mounds and weeds.
Red rooster: as in red light district?
Red: kizil.
(Kiz): virgin.
(Kiz): angry.
Yuzde yuz kiz: hundred percent virgin.
Yuz: hundred.
Yuz: face
Yuz: swim.
Rooster: horoz.
Whore
and oz, as in the Wizard of O's.
Copyright © 1993 by Murat Nemet-Nejat
Special thanks to " The Exquisite Corpse" (P.O.Box 25051, Baton Rouge, LA
70894)
where this poem is first published for the permission to republish it.
-{ana sayfa}{marmara}{trambolin}-