Poetry

Some offal in a bottle
Eyes are as transparent
As glass
They wander off down
Like spiders
To the bottom of it
Until mired in hatred right up to your knees
Its no door
More like a cover covering love up
His path all coiled up didn't seem to lead
anywhere really
All on his own
He managed to scare
Roses as they were growing
In old Lowertown
Noisy trucks
Men armed with pistols
Looking so bourgeois
Fear's an obsession
In the eyes of a famished bird
Love is some torture
On Earth
Time is like
fear melting at the table;
Justice is all bleary-eyed
Equality's an artificial rose
In the hands of a wretched soul
Fraternity's some empty dream
To anyone who's poor
The legend of obscurity
Your hands are bloody now, from digging in
The fire's seismic activity
And tears are what matter's most of all
In matters of justice
Some offal in a bottle
Eyes are as transparent
As glass
They wander off down
Like spiders
To the bottom of it.

* Literally: jar

Üzeyir Lokman ÇAYCI
Mantes la Ville, 15.05.2001
Translated into English free verse
by Richard Vallance, © 2003, June