PEACEonEARTH

HAPPY PRIDE

WE ARE NOT MADE OF SILENCE II:

About “those marks” 1

Seriously, we canceled that, right?

We canceled to go through the moments with stains.

Marks wouldn’t come off

No, it is not a birthmark

I know you didn’t spill the coffee. Neither did I,

It was served like that

Stop trying to wipe the saucer out

Birthmarks are not -the- only ones that are permanent.

K. Barış İlbi

About “those marks” 2

I’m locked.

Yeap, in a tin box.

Hitting the walls

leaves scars, bloody pink-reddish marks,

Yet, when I crash into my own wrinkled face;

Just a paper cut.

Yes, that collision:

The sound of which itself tears my lips apart bleeding through cracks, trembling when words are dropped.

Oh just shut up.

I’m not here to let you sink in braggin’,

How come you have believed

in my texture revenge is involved;

that’s your left hand, or right I should say?

Don’t give me that look, you know it’s a little confusing,

and

I still remember that brownish mole on your right shoulder;

That tiny one.

I always thought it was just a blackhead needed to be popped.

In fact,

It was there to stay now I know.

Has it gotten any bigger in years?

Or?

K. Barış İlbi

Night Words:

That layer of my skin has been peeled already,

The open wound has turned pinkish-blue.

Stop shouting into my ears

It’s not just an issue which we can discuss over;

It’s not a friendly chat that has turned into a profound talk.

Nothing hurts better

than a comforting encounter.

Keeping me mumble will not feed the silence;

Seeing as buzzing up constantly around the light...yes and no...

no, and yes,

Do you know what happened?

I did

shut my mouth up.

K. Barış İlbi

August 8th, 2019

January 3rd, 2021

Evening words:

I don’t need to get louder and you don’t need to keep that calmness

on your face;

Yes, I know,

Neither you nor I am ready to make the list, yet the paper is on the table;

I don’t recall

Random stretches

Day shrinks

Lay them out.

And I recall

I loved you to the thinnest layer of my skin.

K. Barış İlbi

So many pieces your heart has been broken into,

Between numbness and consciousness; we cannot count the minutes

Do I know?

Yet, it’s just your own experience

Yet, pain

Is pain

Yet, grief

Is grief

Do I know?

K. Barış İlbi

Autumn Melancholia in Spring 1:

Once you told me

Leaves fly

Especially in autumn - Is it always the wind to blame though? -

nonetheless;

brownish twilight highlights

shadows in the air.

No, I don’t have a backup plan

since

Pain can never be decomposed into small particles by rearranging thoughts,

Hitting the rock bottom scatters the skin unveiling the truth you need to face up with;

However, falling itself takes hours and hours, days and days, months and months, years and years...

-Isn’t it a well-known fact?

Nobody gets lost on the way to the florist

As daisies never grow old when they are held.

Still

Pain is multi-layered loss of

awareness.... the texture of which

is based upon resisting

Why do you keep on pushing?

I’ll step back

I’ll move forward, you know

Yet, the route hasn’t been defined

Yeah, I’ll abruptly collapse!

So then what word would you mouth?

April 28th,2021 K. Barış İlbi - Bostancı / Istanbul

AS WE ARE GRADUALLY GOING BACK TO "NORMAL"

THIS IS HOW I FELT AT THE BEGINNING OF THE PROCESS:

Corona days / Quarantine in Bostancı/ İstanbul

Written by K. Barış İlbi

Notes from those days:

What’s this?

This is how I want to scream right now. What is this?

I of course know how it actually sounds; where are we, where are we heading off?

Existence;

Existential crises.

I had never ever thought - at least in my lifetime - that we were going to be able to start to question our existence owing to “a distinctive external factor”, namely, a pandemic which is apparently spreading all around the world terminating people and leading to permanent physical harms in bodies that it picks as hosts to survive. The simplicity of the question itself gives away how desperate we are as humankind. Having written that, I am not basically implying the false belief; “so-called technologically advanced world and civilization” that we have created with sweat and blood, no matter what happens, will enable us to fight back with the enemies coming from any direction, has failed big time; however, the roots which that belief has been based upon broken into pieces and scattered in minds so that it will take a while to piece them together to go back on track.

A great many "Intellectual questionings" have been done; investigations, inquiries, academic research have been conducted to figure how well human beings perform to survive under any kind of extreme so called ‘dead or alive’ situation - and yes, it is indeed a matter of dead or alive- since fear tickles our demons on their right spots causing us to display highly instinctive and primitive behaviors while taking out the worst inside. I know I sound flat out shallow; I might be stating the obvious, from my point of view though, in the stain age what defies the gravity is shallowness itself which clearly - on a daily basis - ensures that humanity is gradually terminating itself; yes, humanity is terminating itself; no, no, not out of ignorance, just out of shallowness. Praising shallowness, feeding shallowness, promoting shallowness;

Gratitude.

I want to scream: What is this?

I am not sure if you want me to define “shallowness”…

Or at least I maybe need to clarify what it means in my own lexicon. Do I really need to? Given that, I strongly believe I should not. Since I literally do not want to reverse any meaning of a word that has been used in a specific context and serve it as if it had another meaning you have never come across even on a paper while doing crossword puzzles in order to boost up your brain energy. If I told you the right definition of the given word above in my own world, would it be a relief for you? Would you be able to follow my utterances better? Instead of pouring all of my thoughts about “shallowness“ onto this paper, I would rather scream from the top of my lungs:

“What the f... is this?”

Does it make sense?

Gratitude towards what?

Praising shallowness, promoting shallowness under the supervision of the hi-tech world.

And yes, I have seen all of those creepy shows and films with pandemic, epidemic, post-apocalyptic themes and storylines which were built-up aiming at sharpening our senses, in a way preparing us to “the doomsday” by abusing our feelings; feeding the fears towards survival under unprecedented circumstances.

"What" creativity?

Great producers and filmmakers.

Such Psychics;

Those psychics who are claimed to see “into the future” through their art should be considered as miles stones of this “nouveau art” named as: “wash your hands every 15 minutes.”

(P.S: Please don’t forget to record the process by using your phone which is obviously smarter than you in many respects and post it on one of your social media accounts that are only used for emergency situations. Thank you for your social messaging and cooperation. Many, many thanks.)

Wasn’t it “everyone will be famous for 15 minutes one day “or something like that?

Shame on you.

Andy Warhol, you did do your job well. What a Psychic.

Do you know what; we are all famous now and not just for 15 minutes, for hours and hours, years and years.

And do you know what; we are all at the edge of losing it since we might soon be buried into our own highly acclaimed, renowned “fame” gained for “simply (doing) nothing” flourished and embellished by many selfies with a decent loneliness.

We are far, far beyond that, right?

Wash your hands with a bar of soap at least 20 seconds every 15 minutes.

I might easily shut my mouth up; zip it up for good. Will you be able to see, rather find the sophistication lying behind it? …………………..That’s what I thought so.

What the f... is this?

More is good.

More is better.

(The)

More the merrier.

Oh no, am I giving you a headache with my well-schemed, highly archaic, and banal screaming and spitting sarcasm?

Please put your mask on when I am around.

Enjoy the ride.

22/ 23 March 2020