Nothing Remains the Same

Where could you be tonight, Sinatra? Love and Marriage Love and Marriage A chant I heard reverberate As far away as the length of the waves I rode indisposed When I was bound To a remote island Named Buyukada The permanent content of what you mean Transcends me the moment I kiss your lips And I know that meaning is produced Only in an unexpectedly rambunctious union Succinctly, I dissect everything Looking for generic terms I left Back somewhere in Kadikoy At nine o’clock sharp near the theater Where I heard a beautiful young voice Lamenting Istanbul in operatic tempos Barbarossa Hayreddin Pasha Fatih Sultan Mehmet Jalal al-Din Rumi All proceeded towards Istanbul again Alas! Nothing remains the same Everything is only revisited once again Even the empty sunflower fields of Kutahya Detach yourself, postmodern Kerouac, From the vicissitudes of a stuporous life Isolate yourself from mundane places Where nothing transcends the ephemeral I know that I will meet a deadline Just because life manifests itself Unintentionally in those experiences I weave I thought my days could end On a ship to Prince’s Island bound Alas, a Russian girl took me aside To recount her Icelandic memories To a dismembered Moorish heart