I’ve placed the poorest,
most beloved of metals inside you.
So you may successfully become no one.
For, silver tarnishes, becomes nothing.
Even at its shiniest moment, it knows
of the condition of dust and earth.

Only nothing can speak the language of everything.
Only if you are no one, can you speak
everyone’s heart.

You, silver-spined one, have come to speak!
Next to the things you shall say, your flesh, your hands,
the objects you gather around you, the things you do,
will remain a slight lie. For, you have things to say.

In fact—it’s regrettable, of course—you consist
of the things you shall say!

Silver-spined one!
You will pass through this world
as an oddity.

The Others of the Sea

I fell into the sea, into the crowds of creatures
The water’s noise compressed me on all sides
My animal-shaped virtues retired to their haven
Their sounds subsided, their shapes blurred
The swordfish’s blemish was veiled, it melded with the sea
The silver powder in my mouth scattered in the waves

The “I” remained animal-less, self-less in the crowds
It swelled, ceaselessly swelled in the water
If someone saw me now
They’d say, “How you’ve grown!”
But what has swollen is my animal-less, speech-less, self-less flesh
Like all who’ve fallen into the sea, who’ve passed through middle time…
But growing was always a technical thing:
The animals’ voices and the swordfish’s blemish
Were always in their proper place: inside me

I saw what was not me, the “them,” in the water
Were “they,” by any chance, like me?
Did they also believe…

That every finger has a different personality; that if you stare too long at the red complexity of a fig you’ll never return; that in order to avoid getting your palate cut by bread’s hard crust you must surrender to the chunk and roll it around twice in your saliva; that if you turn back for no reason while walking on the street it will invariably attract the attention of someone uncanny; that if you smoke in windy weather while eating an apple the taste of traveling long distances will reach your tongue; that the word “parlamento” evokes the image of playing cards scattered across the table and that one mustn’t say this; that the word “cibinlik” leaves a sweet, cool sound in the ear that makes you want to smile and if you say the word too much it’ll make you burst into embarrassing laughter; that kissing the palest, innermost part of one’s arm before sleeping engenders sweet dreams; that one mustn’t tell secrets to children who claim that if you place your hands between your thighs when sleeping, bad things will happen to your mother?

Were “they,” by any chance, just like me?
Or did others have entirely different thoughts?

Fingering everything in the water
Getting poisoned, scratched, cut, and certainly rejoicing
I went, I saw, I passed, I knew with the palms of my hands