I. The Purple Smear
Because the hand did not pause.
Because the cracked, dry hand, reaching from the cave-mouth,
Did not see K’na fall.
Gk’har. A name unwhispered,
He saw the cluster, bright against the grey thorn,
Purple, like a bruise, promising water, promising fullness.
The belly’s taut drum.
He plucked. He ate.
The juice, a sudden, joyful night.
Then, the dance.
Not the dance of the successful hunt,
But the twitching dance, the dance of the white foam,
Eyes wide at the indifferent, yellow sun.
O! the column of generations, the laughter stopped.
The hand, unclenching, dropped the remaining fruit.
And the line,
The long, unbroken thread,
Snapped in its first link.
There, in the dust, by the grey thorn.
Finished.
II. The Hall of Echoes
A line of ghosts who never drew a breath.
A chronicle of shadows.
IS THAT ******* TALKING ABOUT HIS GRANDFATHER AGAIN? GO GET HIM, IT’S TIME.
But time for what?
The son (the Second) was not.
He did not learn to chip the flint,
He did not paint the bison on the wall.
His was the empty cave, the unlit fire.
The Other, a whisper,
Never saw the metal, hot and red,
Poured from the stone. He never forged the blade,
Nor rode the first, stiff wheel.
The Other, a farmer,
Never bent his back to Caesar's tax,
His field unplowed, his olive tree unplanted.
The thunder gave no rain.
The Other, a hollow space
Where a man should be,
Never saw the silks of Cathay,
Never tasted salt from the far, black sea.
And the Other.
(O, the clever one, the one who maps)
He was not İzci.
He was not the Recon, the shadow on the horse,
He did not ride the high Balkan pass
To count the shining spears.
He was not.
He did not lie to the Pasha. He did not survive.
His name was never entered in the register.
HEY BUDDY, C’MON IT’S TIME TO GO NOW.
The Other, a silence,
IS HE ALWAYS LIKE THIS?
Never saw the great dome rise above the Horn,
Never bowed his head in the Sublime Porte.
The Other,
(He who might have been the traitor, the clever one)
He was not hain. He was not a coward.
He was not a hero.
He was the empty uniform.
The mud of GALLIPOLI did not stain him,
The dysentery did not save him,
Because the cannons fired,
And he was not there to hear them.
He did not die in a warm bed, hating the waste.
He was not.
The Other, a photograph,
Un-taken. He did not see the Fez discarded,
Did not learn the new, hard––but necessary––letters.
He did not build a new house
From the old stones.
The Other, my father.
The man who never met my mother
On a summer evening,
Under the linden trees.
No coffee. No shared glance.
His hand, unheld.
His son, unconceived.
III. The Unbitten City
And I?
What shall I do now? What shall I do?
I am not.
I am the echo of the eaten berry.
I am the man who does not walk the Unreal City,
Under the brown fog of a winter noon.
I am not the breath asking the question.
I am not the finger typing on the key.
Someone else is here.
A different line, a different blood.
One whose father saw the purple foam
And turned,
And ate the bitter root.
But my line?
The story of the İzci?
The story of the hain?
The story of the caveman who paused?
Lost.
OH MY GOD! I AM SO SORRY.
Lost.
The thunder is silent.
The question is the answer.
The berry was eaten.
There is nothing more.
Can I get your n-number?
Metehan Baydemir
06.11.2025
Nov 16, 2025
Nov 16, 2025 at 2:45 AM UTC