I come from the corridor of light
Where brothers in dust-filled holes
Spent hours building words
From scraps of war

These words formed the corridor of light
Because pens of blood wrote the days of our childhood
Our lives were on the line

Survivors built the corridor of light
As a refuge
A place of memory for all the dead:
Gökhan, Louis, Perli

So love filled the corridor of light:
Singing mothers shook out grief
And dreams from pillows
And from that came a place to sleep

A place for the serene
Because trauma gives us peace
Where our wounds can heal
Wounds of mothers and brothers

Here in the corridor of light

R.I.P.
Gökhan
Louis
Perli

I drowned in a shallow glass,
beneath its quiet surface—
a face, smoothed to nothing,
white as fallen snow.

Sight dimmed,
the golden lake cracked open, dry.
Hunger turned to drought,
the illness lived inside the head.

Letters came from Pension Alpha,
snow pushed the sentences forward,
a sweat-pool spread across the floor,
paramedics held their silence.

Stranded wonders shifting color,
like a whale left on the shore,
drying slowly,
like the golden lake before it.

Lost ID cards,
photographs, days, names—
all swallowed
by cloud-colored disguises.

Eyes glazed, wrapped in rain,
memories heavy with weather.
The maker watches,
a tender keeper of hours.

Glass turns to an ice floe.
We walk it, cautious,
past the faces
carved from night.

I

Bitter echo
back again
one day
again here

Bones from soil
black, beautiful soil
at the center of questions
erased

What the soul is:
a flash in the pool
bears
lightning, hair

A dance around a statue
self-sacrificing vibrations
serving the shore
the red shore

The pyramid room fell apart
unnoticed by the avenue
still something remained:
the black wall safe

inside: slips of paper, ciphers

II

So you’ll come back
because you tore us open
to come back again

a loop shaped like 8
that was no good
since then: surges

irreversible
not like that dramatist
ciphers

loopings ahoy
pull me under
flood-wave planet

crossroads deceive
sky painted over
breath on loan

pockets full of paper
all scraps
all ciphers

III

Help the Explain-Bear!
Unfold the scraps

school him in the knots
may he read them

may he grasp them
may he respect them

may the Explain-Bear
be wrapped in light, in love

false lead
take off the bear-suit!

Ali the spider steps out
from psychiatry’s bars

glassy stare
dancer on the red shore

scribbling on walls
scratching into benches

whispering to nurses
floating through bars

from the garden of ciphers
inventor of ciphers

IV

Rest in peace

Flew through red tunnels
In years of glaring screams
Searching for a pick
Forgotten songs in my head
Flesh wound on my knee
Limping, angry, paranoid

Armed with spray cans
Royal child in underpasses
Science of the sewers
With Matt at the zoo
The bears were sleeping
He spoke of secret meetings
A steep path home

The house was no longer a home
Walls sprayed
Floor full of ****
Water and heat shut off
No power

Placeless
Forgotten
Everything reset to zero

What you send out
Comes back to you
Someone knew the future
Someone blew the hole wide
Someone drove them out

So that a seed
Might sprout on the city’s edge
In rooms of loss and fear
Regret and shame
Suppression

A glowing seed
Tiny
Barely visible

And yet glowing
A fighter

Someone planted this seed
From the heart
Thank you

Crossing over and hurt
Arab rap in the sun
Rays over Frankfurt
A smile beyond price
Car horns as a concert for the future
A welcoming embrace

The wind blows
Ferris wheel
Roller coaster
The hillside chills

A red day turned to peace
Peace melted into blood
Plant me a cactus
The driver keeps circling

Wounds turn into creation
Pure creation
Inside me and us
The shouting soothes

If you truly fear death —
You finally see
The real value of life

The message in the park
The park conceals a message

T spoke of ciphers
So 38 breaths long
Fairground behind the screams
Mr. Barber in the kitchen valley

From a sign
Near the industrial oasis
In God’s slipstream
The loving voice whispers

Demons swarm about
In every sound and color
Through the midst rushes a man
On inline skates across the ice

Do you believe in telepathy?
City buses of fear
Turn off toward the shore of courage
You believe in it

No barbarian and no regret
An open heart
A head full of wild thoughts
Restless toward rest

Do you believe in telepathy?
Warmth floods the man
On the moving bus to the shore of courage
A message to the capital

The ballast of possessions to give away
Against locker debts
In the middle
Where the beginning of the end began

Do you believe in telepathy?
Then this is a sign for you
Only for open hearts
You believe in it

He don’t know **** about having a crew backing him
Nothing about protection
About blood
The streets up north
The painters

Crazy-*** Louis
****** kid with a Muay Thai story
Blazed-out, cigarette-strewn room
Reeking, ready to throw down
Yeah, exactly

He don’t know **** about H-Town
Linden
OK, machetes, PBS
HCT, fingers and knives
Suicidals, street fights, the scene
Doors, rings, psychosis, brawls
Straightening things out

He don’t know **** about Dennis
Thrown into a group home at seven
Never cry
Or it’s lockdown
Permpool Northside money-printing nights
Flipping cash
Packs of smokes
Cartons, busted bodegas

He don’t know **** about Gino
Mom on ******, dead
Dad locked up, mind in orbit
Funeral, ****** crowd
Feelings buried under a hoodie
Chest out

He don’t know ****
Just a little
Only the tip
The iceberg’s carried by
The colossus

He don’t know ****
That’s his blessing