Skip to main content
Read page text
page 84
* from the Turkish of Erozcelick Seyhan (1962–2011) Coffee Readings 1 People stand on one another’s shoulders and soon are a tower stretching into the sky. At the summit, a single hand silver as a flying fish. But none of us is last. All of us are first, as we rise like incense through the sky, people who become a plume of smoke. Or, more like a rainbow, or the roads of a rainbow, its open roads to emptiness. Surely this smoke now makes a saint, a smoke-saint who is a smoke-man or smoke-woman too, all of us writing our stories on the sky, like the grits in the coffee cup spinning around. Coffee Readings 2 These grounds are dry. Time must have stopped. But inside the cup, what might be a mountain is flying into the sky. Simply a symbol? Of anxiety perhaps? Because when mountains fly they leave the world behind. 82
page 85
What the coffee says is, take it slow. But take is easy when taking it slow. This may mean rebirth. A place between earth and sky. But there’s a cat in the coffee grits and perhaps a pigeon too. Other spaces might be ocean depths, but there too is a new moon thin as a switchblade. Or, from this angle, the moon is a mirror where east is west, north south, and a man’s heart beats on the right. A star shines beside that moon, burning brighter in the moonwax. Do you think the cup is starting to tell the truth? Coffee Readings 3 Masked, anonymous in a crowd of centaurs, a dwarf-angel or angel-dwarf regards everything. Fish and reflections of fish. Birds and reflections of birds bursting into flame. But birds bring bad news. Fish bring bad news. Dwarf-angels and angel-dwarves bring bad news. So beware the centaurs. Beware all who lean like italics. For it is better to go unmasked than join the soul-suq in the sky. 83

Page Text

View plaintext

*

from the Turkish of Erozcelick Seyhan (1962–2011)

Coffee Readings 1

People stand on one another’s shoulders and soon are a tower stretching into the sky.

At the summit, a single hand silver as a flying fish.

But none of us is last. All of us are first, as we rise like incense through the sky, people who become a plume of smoke.

Or, more like a rainbow, or the roads of a rainbow, its open roads to emptiness.

Surely this smoke now makes a saint, a smoke-saint who is a smoke-man or smoke-woman too, all of us writing our stories on the sky, like the grits in the coffee cup spinning around.

Coffee Readings 2

These grounds are dry. Time must have stopped.

But inside the cup, what might be a mountain is flying into the sky. Simply a symbol? Of anxiety perhaps? Because when mountains fly they leave the world behind.

82

read next page

My Bookmarks

Buy this Book
Skip to main content