The children who went to pick mushrooms
passed by graves and abandoned factories along the way.
Perhaps ghosts lived there too.
They examined the photographs
engraved on the tombstones with curiosity,
while their grandmother dragged dry branches
to start a fire
and cook the mushrooms.

I feel light,
as if right before death
or maybe I’m already dead and writing.
Who can make sense of life?
I’ll just go out onto the balcony,
smoke a cigarette,
keep up the routine,
and act as if I’m alive.

And where is the quail,
in which grass is it hiding?
I have seen it flutter
on dry grass, then disappear somewhere,
with its wheat-colored  feathers
it hides in the fields,
so it won't end up
on the hunter's pan,
a target of his hunger.

We like this couple.
They kiss and tenderly embrace each other,
but we are very hungry.

Eternity ends for us when our time runs out,
when love dies with us.
We either turn to soil or to ashes,
yet somewhere, we will still exist
we cannot erase our trace.

Wife: Do you think the new purchase brings us closer?
Husband: Brings us closer?
Wife: Yes, that’s what I think the pleasure caused by buying something new.
Husband: Yeah, that’s true.
Wife: You’re a tight-lipped leech.
Husband: Don’t even heat it up.
Wife: Sometimes, you seem very beautiful to me.
Husband: Hahaha.
Wife: I miss the snow. Take me to Bakuriani.
Husband: Let’s go next year.
Wife: I’d go to the village, but nothing can warm up the cold rooms.
Husband: And the rats.
Wife: Hahaha.

We are most stripped bare
when we await catharsis.
Our hands weaken,
and our faces grow serene.
We are like the fragrant, blossoming flowers of spring
that soon wither,
yet their bulbs emerge again
to bloom anew in another spring's flowers.

You closed the black doors,
like a sealed temple
if such a thing exists.
You made your dwelling in various dark hearts,
slipped into a locked latch.
Dry leaves rustle under your feet in the silence of the night,
and like a stray dog,
you don’t know in whose house you’ll awaken.

Warm winter climate change.
This year, I couldn’t go to the resort.
I feel miserable because of it
I miss the snow so much.
I would probably take a lot of pictures,
But I made a promise to myself: next year, I’ll go.
In my city, water freezes, but, sadly, there’s no snow.

By the roadside stands a house that is mine,
In the yard, a mulberry tree,
Now cut down,
Because flies swarmed around it.

The scent of fig and walnut trees,
And many others
Some withered,
Some flowing with the river of life.

A house that waits for me,
Closed and locked,
In the cellar, perhaps,
Rats are hiding.

The price of something, precise and clear,
To know the price of an object, matter, or our failure.
Of a powerless state of mind,
Or the ice cream we eat.

A boy sells flowers picked from graves at the market gate.
A black heart.
It will rain, and petals will fall from the flowers.
His warm tears will blend with the cold rain.
Who has time
For misfortune

A pop poet sold four hundred books by pre-order,
banal and useless illusions.
But if you want to make money,
perhaps it’s not so bad to become ******,
and write only overused phrases.

I’m simply worried about the cruelty of nature,
Or perhaps about the carelessness of humans...
The fires,
The scorched homes,
The injured people.
Could I write about birds and animals at a time like this?
I don’t think so, because they too die,
They too turn to ash.
A single city can be entirely consumed by fire,
And our efforts prove meaningless.

Woman: Tell me, how can I surprise you?

Man: Send me a picture where your long hair is flowing over your shoulders, and your chest is visible.

Woman: You've never had such desires before.

Man: You've awakened something new in me. I just want to touch you.

Woman: There's a great distance between us.

Man: I believe in love online.

Woman: I understand.

Man: I'll definitely come to you, see you. I want us to have fun in a hotel, drink, and have ***.

Woman: That sounds very good, but I'd like us to meet in a year, during winter, in freezing, cold weather.

They never met. What's more, they ended up arguing.

Edgar Allan Poe's raven,
A devourer of carrion,
The raven of the underworld,
Gustave Doré's ravens...
A black raven perches on manganese.

An eternal value,
Dignity,
Or the pain caused by its violation
A cynical pain.
But let us mock it,
For is the pain that seeks to dominate us
Not deserving to be base,
Brought low by our lyrical ridicule?

Babette: Don’t dream make your dreams a reality.
Lea: When I see an expensive hotel on the street, I get the urge to strip down and lie in its bathtub.
Babette: Convince yourself that you’re already there naked, lying in the bathtub, maybe with a man beside you.
Lea: I don’t need a man.
Babette: How could you not? What about someone like Hugo?
Lea: Oh, maybe... but he probably had too many women. Could I really waste my love on a man like that?
Babette: Let’s have a drink.
Lea: Let’s get some Italian Aperol.
Babette: Oh, that’s a great idea.

The two characters met and lay on  grass. The evening was cool more than that, it was cold and bright, like a winter's day. They talked about trivial topics.

"Shall we eat?" one of them asked.
"Of course," the other replied.

They entered a non-vegetarian diner and ordered roasted chicken with white wine. The character loved simple food, and the other loved them. They started eating.

"Roasted chicken goes so well with white wine," one said.
"Oh, I completely agree. Let’s make this meal last as long as possible."
"Of course."

They began to eat very slowly. One of them moved their mouth so deliberately that it looked like a slow-motion scene from a music video.

"You know," one said, "I love Sartre's Nausea."
"Ah, indeed, a must-read book."
"Now that we’re talking about it, this reminds me of our situation."
"I get it Sartre, right?"

They laughed. One laughed so slowly that a piece of chicken fell from their mouth.

"So, where should we go today?"
"Let’s decide once we’re outside."

After their prolonged meal, they left the cheap diner and walked down the street.

I want to write with vivid descriptions,
like Bunin’s:
a lilac sky, tender grass,
or even the reigning silence.

But I won’t lose myself entirely.
I often entertain myself with imagined fictions,
sitting on my couch,
picturing how I continue my studies at Harvard.
Forgive me for this whim
I simply wish to enroll in a ceramics course.

I mentioned it in an older poem,
how I envision the process.
But no,
I’ll stick to painting abstractions,
which help me unwind the most.

I love observing colors,
their blending,
their interplay.

In a city where Hello Kitty toys are nowhere to be found,
I think that's just how my city is.
"Order it from Japan!" they say.
But I managed to find a mug
at a Miniso store,
with my beloved toy on it.
I'm certainly not a child,
I just adore this pink creature...

Where do you draw inspiration from?
A paused television screen
showing the northern lights.
If you have money and a sharp mind,
getting into Harvard isn’t hard,
even for a ceramics course.
Oatmeal we eat in the morning,
or sometimes skip entirely.

The unread books that remain,
I believe 2025 will be more fruitful
with more reading.
There’s much time ahead or maybe none at all.
The elders have said:
live for just one day.
Let’s bring theory into practice,
calmly meet self-development.
Fireworks have been banned,
as their noise makes animals’ hearts stop.

It rained.
The cows begin to run.
The owner
slows his steps and thinks
they’ll be waiting by the house.
He enters a small shed
to hide from the rain.
The smell of sweat rises,
what the water couldn’t wash away.
The air is saturated
with the scent of nature.
This is how it is in the summer.
He smokes a cigarette,
it’s pleasant.

In the forest, near the splashes
Of the botanical garden's waterfall,
Our love was seated.
You held my hand,
At the picnic we had spread out,
And we lay in the grass
It pricked us,
Because autumn was already approaching,
And it carried the dry scent
That withered grass always holds.

Our love was probably more childlike,
Something more pure,
Than one filled with seductive emotions.
You would give me a small souvenir
At every meeting,
And in the evening, you would walk me home.

The music I listened to back then
Brings back memories,
Rising once more to the surface.

A child who went to the village,
To a village where mainly middle-aged or Elderly people stayed during winter.

I loved solitude Under the trees
It was my favorite ritual.

Rotten grass was only at the villa, With a strong smell.

A married couple lived nearby, husband would comb his wife's hair in the evenings.

At the end of summer, I returned to the city, with school awaiting me.
My mother would buy me new clothes, I even remember the scent of those clothes.

Rosehips remain on the bushes,
someone sings about God aging.
In the cold winter, I craved ice cream
a mix of strawberry and vanilla.

I’ve weathered crises,
my brain’s convolutions feel heavy.
I can feel the flow of my blood.
An old man sits on a car, dying.

I’m afraid of cars,
afraid of collisions, of accidents.
I drop ice cubes into lemonade;
even in winter, I love cold drinks and food.

My grandmother knits socks for me.
I’m afraid she’s grown old,
afraid of losing her.

The sunset heralds the coming night
in winter, darkness falls quickly.

Lilac-colored sunset,
evening willows by the lake,
a pearly smile
a limping man seen through the window
falls once again onto the asphalt.

A squirrel climbs into its tree hollow,
the flow of time never stops.
I fear an earthquake,
afraid to be crushed
beneath the weight of my concrete home.

A mother puts her child to sleep,
the child, sated by the sweet taste of milk,
closes their eyes.

On the lemons, on those very trees Lorca wrote about,
A great genius.
I can feel the vivid image he brought to life in his words,
Hear the sound of the guitar,
Understand his state before death,
Before the execution.
Granada’s sun shines because of you.

Feed the earth flesh,
So it may be fertile.
We eat carrion
It sounds revolting!

Do not close the coffin doors,
I have fears.
Don't bury my hands,
Let the animals eat them
For we eat them,
It sounds revolting.

Dead trees will come to life again.

In mariana trench
a singing blue whale,
my river of thoughts
flows over my mother's lap.
The sun has lost its warmth
against the backdrop of winter's cold,
when you cry,
and embrace someone,
it’s a great relief.
Tell me the story of Scheherazade,
I will fall asleep on your arm.
Forgive me my foot,
for the wound I caused you with an axe in my childhood,
wild pigs devour
the fruit of mulberry trees.

The caricatures of our soul,
Trapped within white walls,
Sinking into the slumber of morning.
Trees, of which we are the mothers,
Or perhaps wild nature’s offspring.
When we place our hands on the table,
Awaiting food,
We see our grown children through the window.
The tip of the pen leaves lines on the paper,
Trapped within white walls,
Sinking into the slumber of morning.
Deaf concrete houses
Disrupt the echo of stillness
Oh, the emptiness.
Bresson’s films,
Breaking into us,
Like the diary of a country priest,
Written on black pages
In white correction fluid.

Sandcastles,
Collapsing like our dreams.
At the end of the night,
We feel the chill of dawn.

Draw a silent fish,
With water gathered in its mouth.
Victims of our surroundings,
We follow the earth,
Cracked like it.

In the sand of mistakes,
A mother brews Turkish coffee.

The noise will shatter the windows,
the scorching cold will light a torch,
because often, falling asleep in frost,
we may warm up and die bloodless.

Every person I've met has their own demands and whims directed at me.
I always regard them with forgiveness.
But they can't understand this
they fuss, thinking I see them as empty space.
I simply possess great willpower.

It was a beautiful morning
When I stepped out onto the balcony and saw a crow.
It seemed as if it had been waiting for me-
Me, who was going through an existential crisis.

I felt the urge to throw some food to the crow from the balcony.
I knew my grandmother always kept meat in the house.
I opened the fridge and tossed the crow a piece of meat.
It quickly caught the scent of raw flesh,
Grasped it in its beak, and disappeared.

I have a big book on the history of art,
which I read long ago,
but now I've found in it
dried leaves and flowers I had preserved
a herbarium.
I no longer remember when I saved them.
It was a surprise to me.
The flowers have lost their color
but they are so beautiful.
Perhaps I will frame them
to give them eternity.

I think penguins dream of flying,
It’s a fact they belong to the class of birds.
Can you imagine a penguin in flight?
I can’t, because their fluffy bodies couldn’t bear it.
Still, I think they dream.

Once, a poet told me a story
about a charming girl
who received compliments from everyone,
But one day, her cousin arrived
someone even more beautiful.
The girl’s beauty faded into the shadows.
She grew despondent.
Her mother told her,
“When sadness visits you, sing.”

In the village where my grandmother lives,
chestnuts are plentiful,
encased in prickly shells.
They drop from the trees,
hitting the ground with a thud,
and crack open to reveal their fruit inside.
I love collecting them,
immersed in the magical stillness of the forest.
The scent of rhododendron luteum sweet, unforgotten.
Our years resemble stones,
stacked one atop the other.

Today, my niece,
made me a necklace.
It’s so beautiful,
She put all her love into it
little Sesili, with a big heart,
who adores art,
Her heart shines with pure joy.

I have grown a lot,
my brain is growing,
the knots in my brain are untying.
I want to be small,
I am in despair,
Or like Alice…

I used to have a neighbor
who would gnaw on chicken bones.
He said that the chicken's brain is in its bones,
he brought fat chickens roasted them,
removed their bones, and gnawed on them.
As a vegetarian, seeing this made my heart ache.

In my teenage years, I listened to heavy rock,
Dressed as a true rock fan should,
Stayed up late into the night, smoked,
And gave no thought to what the next day would bring.

I’d wander with friends to abandoned places,
Where we’d tell scary stories, drink, and sing among the ruins.
Our hearts beat wildly with excitement.

Nothing disappears from the earth,
What is of the earth stays with the earth.

On the land where solitude walks,
Its silence has an abyss.
What might change
By breaking it
The vow of silence broken.

Goats fallen into the ravine
Their blood on the rocks,
Every moment is dangerous,
A herald of death,
A goat lying down
To rest on the rocky hill,
Hidden from land predators.

"Plant a tree,"
says Mother,
"If you can't find a friend like yourself,
a book will be your friend."
But that is not enough.

Sometimes, as Houellebecq would say,
we want to be in someone or the opposite,
constantly desired, we just need the right person.

Sometimes it feels like I live inside my own head
Until I step outside,
Look at people,
Listen to their conversations.

We often think that one person cannot change anything
But we’re mistaken,
One often decides,
In most cases.