“By the steeds that run, with panting breath.” (Those That Run 1– Quran)
What do you know of running?
What do you know about running!
I watch happenings merely
As I revere the time greatly.
Sensor lamps of the apartment buildings
Censored and wicked porn of Japanese
Custos morum that sleeps on his watch
Offended by his own dream, a hard and a wet crotch
Waiting alone on the right angle
Of an “at ease, attention, fuck off” triangle
Hope chest of a bride who dances samba around
The groom that puts his hopes atop what he’s found
Joy of a dealer that flows down the lips
A teacher that can’t tell apart his earning and shroud’s rips
An actor that can’t hang himself after some wine
For his lines have tangled with his finest line
Smoked and tossed out cigarette butts
Are piled up in the moldy pasta pot
Fortunetellers are to declare their divinity
As is seen until the next of the three
People that hurt the feeling of the ones
Who are up on why they are alone and oblivious what next comes
Tailors who palm their rupture off
To people as fashion – much thought of
People who can’t sophisticate in no way on the land
Of I see but I can’t speak and I speak yet they don’t understand
Prime and proud people that can only be broken into pieces by themselves
Devaluation of a high profit rate picture taken holus-bolus
Wife of a bureaucrat that can’t separate the sheep from the goats
Quick dying batteries – when left on reading tables – of smart phones
Neighbors of a lonely poet who hasn’t died yet
Are uneasy with the idea of being heir of his self hate
Imperceptions of fairness by quick-witted, that’s not strange
The forgotten value of the far east – Kamasutra, all the rage
An idol that is not worshipped anymore
Satisfying the harmonica by the tongue, ah, that sorrow
Among the jazzy timbres of unexpected death
There! All of you! Right here!
As you ought to be bold and brave
You’ve turned into obedient slaves
The ones that are obedient slaves
What do you know of running?
What do you know about any of these!
Kerem Bereketoğlu, Anadolu Ekspresi, Yeni Türk Şiiri, 2017.