Ayasofya Library, Istanbul
And I learned the emptiness of books
I went abroad, and I found the same deep-rooted ignorance
Van Helmont I didn’t quite know
In search of what
I had come here
It seemed
I had turned into a small bird
Looking for a nest.
I was shuffling through
The card holders
Middle shelves
Side rows
Inside my mind
Reinforced concrete
20th Century plasterwork
Found new dimensions…
My radars
Worked well
Terrified
Like Hansel and Gretel
I left bread crumbs behind.
I arrived at the reading room
Turned pages of reference books one by one
As if I was gradually drowning
I was looking for a piece of board
But it was already too late;
In the middle shelves
Nietzsche’s Salome was going
To become Rilke’s muse
And may talk between these two
Of the survival of the fittest
Which has no right to veto!
The reading room was cold
I could hear different voices;
Nazim Hikmet
Was writing letters to Monavar
In a loud voice
And simultaneously
Played chess with Vera
What a pure justice!
Someone called me by name in that darkness
I turned back
A small candle was burning in the repository
I saw with my own eyes that
Mayakovski was offering business cards
To Maria
I had been thrown into
An exceptional position
And I didn’t know myself.
On the map on the wall
Balqis Al-Rawi
Was dreaming in the Iraqi Embassy
That she will be killed
And Nizar QabbaniHad chosen his new beloved.
I am slowly remembering
The witch was stalking me
I was hiding inside the books
I was struggling
Floundering
But it was useless
9-year old Beatrice
Was dictating to Dante
The patterns of the Divine Comedy
Dante
Tired and homeless
Never went to the paradise he had created
No!
There was no hell in his life either
For his entire life
He staggered in the horrible purgatory
That Beatrice has built for her.
Here
Among the damp books of this repository
Even Olga
Could not make Chekov
A little disturbed and a lover
I should leave this place
And go to Roodsar
My sad city
And read a full heart of Leyla and Majnun
In my childhoods’ room