Ceremonial robes Poem by Bejan Matur

In the cold decayed

heart of these lands

I saw eyes.

Everyone was there with their voice

and their body's pose.

We know someone best while making love,

when we corrode our hearts together.

Growing heavy, our body

wakes us in the night.

Houses with courtyards are like graves.

Childhood is a sleep, long-lasting.

And a yearning to touch,

a yearning drags us towards death.

I tested myself in every body,

I abandoned myself in every city.

I took the skies of countries to my heart

and when I saw the emptiness of my heart,

I said, it's time to go.



Inside the mouldering robes of ceremony

roots sway on the hanger.

Even if we drop fire in the sea

it will burn for ever,

it burns, a gift of desolation to the dark.

Perhaps history is a mistake says the poet

mankind's a mistake says god.

Much later,

in a future corrupt as the heart of these lands,

mankind's a mistake says god,

I'm here to correct it

but too late.



The wave of red lifeless water,

the road followed at night,

the poor earth strewn with travellers,

the white swaying shrouds,

ceremonial robes.

The only thing needed for a race

is the horse's mane.

This is the truth,

now we are here

rotted away in a rut.



God must not see the letters of my script.

Mankind's a mistake, he keeps saying.

And to correct his mistake

he gives sorrow,

only sorrow.



February 1997 Berlin

translated by Ruth Christie