Incense (poetry)

Incense

The way to communicate with celestial beings

Bringing us to higher altitudes, closer to the sky,

Taking us upwards by the smoke.

Incense! Incense! You can’t solve my problem,

You don’t even respond!

But I feel better when I see your smoke.

You are a placebo, incense!

Some of you I don’t like.

If produced by some kind of wood,

Heavier than I would have expected, you might be.

Heavier in weight and smoke...

I prefer light ones, lighter ones.

Lighter light in both senses.

Lighting all the lights as a lighter

And light as a light, a semi-existence.

When it is finished, it means 

At least one being knows what I prayed for.

It has to be recorded somewhere up,

Recorded by the alphabet of smoke.

We use a candle with you as well,

When you are tired of illuminating us.

Like a lamp it takes you

From the dark side to the bright side.

I can’t wait for you to be finished.

Glad to know that somebody will take care of you

And you will still keep on burning somewhere,

You exist irrespective of my being.

Incense! Incense! You carry me to far lands, further lands!

I would like to burn like you -and I do,

So that my smoke would go away.

We never wait for your end, when we go to the temple

Knowing that your end is a beginning to something else

And that some people wait, up until you are finished;

You may burn the temple otherwise.

A substitute for praying you are, incense!

You make the experience holy.

I would like to burn you again and again

If I would have too much time.

No time, no incense. Pretty wise.

You have many colors,

You are the color actually.

You are tall for special occasions

In Chinese temples especially,

You are the height actually.

Red you are, redness you are

In Chinese lands, redness you are.

Brown you are, dark brown, light brown

In the shining temples of Bangkok.

And black you are in Benares,

In the forgotten land of wisdom; India.

Forgotten I am, black I am

And that is why I will go away like you,

To far lands, further lands,

Without leaving any trace behind.

Forgotten I am, black I am

And that is why I will go away like you,

When I die, after cremation,

I will go away as the smoke.

Smoke concocted with all the smoke around.

That is you!

Ulaş Başar Gezgin

27.06.2007, HCMC, Vietnam

Gezgin, U.B. (2017). For Those Who Will Sail Across The Oceans: An Explorer’s Vietnam Poems.

POETRY BOOKS IN ENGLISH AND OTHER LANGUAGES / İNGİLİZCE VE DİĞER DİLLERDE ŞİİR KİTAPLARI 1. Gezgin, U.B. (2017). Yağmur Sonrası/ After Rain / После дождя / Diğer Dillerdeki Gezgin Şiirleri: Rusça, İngilizce, Tayca, Azerbaycanca, Vietnamca, İspanyolca ve Japonca [Gezgin’s Poetry in Other Languages: Russian, English, Thai, Azerbaijani, Vietnamese, Spanish and Japanese]. 2. Gezgin, U.B. (2017). You, I and Our Son - Poems of Peace, Longing and Love from Vietnam 3. Gezgin, U.B. (2017). For Those Who Will Sail Across The Oceans: An Explorer’s Vietnam Poems. 4. Gezgin, U. B. (2007). On a Tablet – English Poems by Ulas Basar Gezgin. Lulu.