To Live Longer Poem by Ulas Basar Gezgin

After two days you spent out of the city,
When you stepped on the city airport,
Alas, I was happy as if
You wouldn't come back, but decided at once to come back.

And this poem is against economic growth, he says
"Don't go to another city", I can't bear this city alone.
Let's remove the money you would spend for air tickets
From the Gross Domestic Product.

I used to like the city
To which you went for fireworks, but now,
While I would light the sky by many fireworks for you,
It doesn't make sense for Anita to go far from the city.

This poem can't be a part of performance plans, neither job applications
Nor the complaint boxes of skyscrapers.
This poem mingles with clandestine kisses on elevators.
Those elevators, as far as I heard,
Do not stop at any levels, they go up to the heights of sky.

Your hands seem to be small, your eyes too, from a distance.
And according to what the physicist grandfather says,
I would only see your past, when I looked at you from a distance
As the light travels to your face.
Just because of this, leave the past apart now,
Tell me what is to come, who cares what has left.

Those two days you spent out of the city,
I will mark them on my calendar by black ink.
I will live longer only if
Those black days on my calendar would be a few.




29.03.2009, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam