Category Archives: Reflections

the monster under the bed

the path to take was as visible as
our reflection on a clean mirror

an old being
of rapid cognitive decline,
a mere television personality,
bought by foreign power,
installed into the People’s House
by the same intruder . . . twice
while this time, also swimming
in the illegally-earned money
of his president,
a non-American billionaire

clueless in the most basic knowledge
about the matters of the world
and willfully ignorant of other countries,
an unalphabet in the history
of the United States,
unfit to govern even a 3rd world country

void of morals, ethics, and shame,
emptied of any sense of responsibility,
and full of overflowing hypocrisy

his veins and few brain cells
tainted in and feeding from
racism
bigotry
misogyny
hatred for all non-whites
strutting his overblown ego
deviant and highly skilled in corruption
deception and gaslighting
having exhausted all available
and potential crooked ways
through and through
throughout his life
vengeful
evil

a 34 times convicted felon
for crimes, including treason and rape
a chronic liar of notorious fame

and . . .
it breathes

Faust? Or Mephisto?

the monster under the bed

© hülya n. yılmaz, 12.24.2024

Assigned Existences

Somewhere
someone has the nerve
to draw on a blank canvas
a sketch of your life; yes, YOUR life,
dictating to you how to live.

The same canvas, then, is made public.
The sketched you now have a broadly-recognized image.
YOU yourself, however, have been silent all along.

Somewhere
another someone
takes it upon him-/herself
to lend you word fragments and poor grammar.

Utterly popular has become that song,
taped on your behalf in absentia.
The recorded you now have a broadly-recognized voice.
YOU yourself, however, have been silent all along.

When, do YOU think, will your existence
be worthy enough to begin to live
YOUR life per a design
created by YOU?  

* The poem, “Assigned Existences”, has been published in the June 2024 issue of The Year of the Poet, published by Inner Child Press International.

An old poem . . .

Like an Eagle

İstanbul dons a large number of majestic forts.

Those structures from many ancient histories

May today not appear as powerful anymore,

But the debris alone suffice to astound
the willing eye through a mere peek
at the hauntingly mighty Bosphorus,
in sync with the influential breaths
that many civilizations of the past
have generously left in it to last.

I haven’t been there

in too long of a while;
in an empirical sense, that is.
Frequent visits

of my fertile imagination
have otherwise sated

my hunger and thirst.

My longing for the dead

who were left behind
and all my cravings

for the impeccable times
have been re-lived, time and again,
in harmony,
amid the scents of a caring love
ever so painstakingly.

I borrowed an eagle’s eye

on this special day,
then perched atop a bastion
and began to sway.

Palaces, tea houses, trolleys, Bazaars,
cafés, fishermen,
rare carpet – Kilim and antiquities-selling ambitious shops,
yachts, stately mosques,
the famed Dolmabahçe Sarai,
freighters, speed-boats, Hovercrafts,
scenic jogging paths
do not interest me in the least . . .
The eagle’s eye is a loan
for a refined delicacy.

I refuse to waste it for the mundane.

On the bottom of the Bosphorus,
all of a sudden,
underneath a recent undercurrent,
oh, so sullen!
Amid sea grass . . .

I spotted my brass keychain
of four distinctive keys.
On it, my elephant carried on.

I towed it heroically.
Its movable, pretty trunk
waved at me ecstatically.

I guided us all
to the astonishing Sinopian coasts,
to my breathtakingly serene flat-sanctuary . . .

But, I found, to my demise,
it no longer was there.

Only then, did i recall my dream

of last year,
on the night of the 2nd month’s 14th,

and . . .

my loaner eye wept.