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On world poetry day I listed some of my favorite poets. To my shame I forgot to add the great American poet Allen Ginsberg to the list. In my biannual "I've-got-to-update-my-mobile-playlist" routine, I format my mobile memory -I am sooo happy not being shackled to itunes btw-  and sift through my music library, looking for new discoveries and re-affirm the classics which are always included in the list. The unusual, one-time duet of the Clash and Allen Ginsberg titled "The Capitol Air" is one of those classics. Ginsberg sings one of his acerbic social critiques with the Clash in the background. I found out recently that this delightful punk rock-poetry coming together was not one time. In 1982 movie Poetry in Motion 20 contemporary American poets sang their poems. Ginsberg was once again reciting his poems with punk rock in the background. I had quoted the Turkish singer/songwriter Sezen Aksu in my entry for World Poetry day: Poetry is dying out...

To celebrate World Poetry Day, here are some of my favorite poets an their poems: Rainer Maria Rilke - Der Ölbaumgarten - The Olive Garden   Pablo Neruda - Ode to the Onion   Federico Garcia Lorca   - Romance Sonámbulo - Sonambulo Romance   Ezra Pound  - Cino   T.S. Eliot  - The Wasteland   Bob Dylan Visions of Johanna Poetry deserves celebration. As the Turkish poet Sezen Aksu wrote 19 years ago: Eyvah şiirler azalmış, günümüz perişan Yanıyor içimizdeki koskoca orman -- Poetry is dying out, How miserable is our day, The great forest in our hearts, Is burning out

No other poem describes the dismal state that the world is in right now: "TURNING and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity." from the legendary poem Second Coming by William Butler Yeats.

"We sit here stranded, though we're all doin' our best to deny it." Bob Dylan - Visions of Johanna "Forget your perfect offering, There is a crack, a crack in everything, That's how the light gets in. " Leonard Cohen - The Anthem "And nothing's forever not even five minutes When you're headed for the finish line" Lou Reed - Finish Line "Savaslar birbirine benzer, Kazanan olmaz, Kazandigini sanma, Kaybettiklerine bak biraz" "All wars are alike, There is no victor, Don't think you've won, On your losses should you ponder. " Bülent Ortacgil - Biraz Umut Ver "Ölümle yasami ayiran o cizgi, Siyahla beyazi ayiramaz ki" "That line separating death and life, Cannot separate black and white." Besiktas Supporters - Football Chant

"Far away, far away, Are not all lovely things far away? As far at least lies that valley, as the bedridden sun in the luminous east, The paralyzed mountains, the sickly river... Are not all things lovely far away, Are not all things lovely far away? Edgar Allen Poe - Valley of Unrest" Fall wakens the secret explorer in me. I have this urge to go to some beautiful place far away. This picture of Torres del Paine National Park in Chile and the Edgar Allan Poe Poem, which Lou Reed covered in his Raven Album describe my feelings these days perfectly.

"April is the cruelest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring Dull roots with spring rain. Winter kept us warm, covering Earth in forgetful snow, feeding A little life with dried tubers. ... Waste Land - T.S. Elliot " If April is the cruelest month as Elliot says, then October is the warmest month. I spend the summer days dreaming of winter, and October is the month when I feel the winter coming. The only piece of news that I anticipate the whole year is the news of the first snow fall of the season . This year, I did not have to wait October for it. I can already feel the itch at the bottom of my feet, where my skies belong...

I had written previously about " When We Were Kings ," the Academy Award winning documentary about the fight between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman in Zaire. I watched it again last week, and I just have to recommend it again to everyone. It is definitely the best documentary I've watched. In addition to getting to know Muhammad Ali, you will also hear the shortest poem in English Language. --SPOILER WARNING-- Muhammad Ali goes to Harvard graduation. He talks at the graduation, and the students shout to him for a poem. He recites poems in his interviews. He then improvises the shortest, but yet powerful poem I've ever heard. " Me, We. Muhammad Ali" He's a great man. --SPOILER WARNING--

"The Thinker" may be in sculpture what Mona Lisa is in painting. This is at least true in Turkey. The sculptor of this and many more great works Aguste Rodin died today in 1917. I became interested in his works not by his most famous work, but through Rainer Maria Rilke, his good friend, and one time his assistant. It was he who thought Rilke the power of observation of simple things, and therefore inspired his "Dinggedichte" the poems of things. Such as "The Panther", which in my humble opinion, is the one of the warmest expressions of existentialism: The Panther Translated by Ronnie Pontiac His sight, passing by the bars, exhausted, sees nothing else. For him there are a thousand bars, a thousand bars, and beyond them no world. His limber lope and powerful pace ever turning in the smallest circle dance strength around a center where a great will stands numb. Sometimes the veil of his pupil parts silently an image goes in past the tense poise of still lim...

My favorite Leonard Cohen album is Death of a Ladies' Man. The position of the apostrophe is key to the title, and makes all the difference. Cohen was never a ladies man, but a man of his ladies. In the 2006 documentary "I'm Your Man" he was asked about his fame as a ladies man. He said: "Calling me a ladies man is an insult to the thousands of nights I spent alone in my bed." Everyone should watch this great documentary to gain insight on this great poet of our time. He turned 74 two days ago. I am so excited, and feel privileged that I will watch this legend live in two weeks. Here is my favorite Cohen song, "Hey That's No Way To Say Goodbye" I'm even more happy now, that this song makes sense to me finally thanks to that someone special.

I've been listening to the 4AD records super-group This Mortal Coil lately. This legendary label had names like Cocteau Twins, Dead Can Dance back then. Their 1991 Album Blood has a daunting cover of The Byrds song " I Come and Stand at Every Door. " The lyrics are the Pete Seeger -Pete Seeger is the country musician who wanted to cut the cables with an ax when Dylan went electric in the Newport Festival- translation of the great Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet's poem on Hiroshima, " The Little Girl ." Here is the This Mortal Coil Cover in Youtube: (ktunnel: This Mortal Coil - I Come & Stand at Every Door) This song reminded me the genius of Dylan once again. I mean who can tell the horror of an atom bomb in such a concise and mysterious manner: Darkness at the break of noon Shadows even the silver spoon The handmade blade, the child's balloon Eclipses both the sun and moon To understand you know too soon There is no sense in trying. Here is a great video...

"I looked for you to give me transcendent experiences To transport me out of self and aloneness sent alienation Into a sense of oneness and connection, ecstatic and magical I became a junkie for it" from Rilkean Heart by Cocteau Twins: in memory of great German poet Rilke, who wrote many of such mesmerizing lines: Der Panther Im Jardin des Plantes, Paris Sein Blick ist vom Vorübergehn der Stäbe so müd geworden, daß er nichts mehr hält. Ihm ist, als ob es tausend Stäbe gäbe und hinter tausend Stäben keine Welt. Der weiche Gang geschmeidig starker Schritte, der sich im allerkleinsten Kreise dreht, ist wie ein Tanz von Kraft um eine Mitte, in der betäubt ein großer Wille steht. Nur manchmal schiebt der Vorhang der Pupille sich lautlos auf -. Dann geht ein Bild hinein, geht durch der Glieder angespannte Stille - und hört im Herzen auf zu sein. and my humble translation into Turkish: Panter Parmakliklarin gecit töreninden, Öyle yoruldu ki bakislari, artik dayanamiyor hic birseye....

Last year I was fortunate to watch Dylan live in London. This year Leonard Cohen goes on tour after 15 years. On 30th of August, I will watch him with my sister in Berlin. His tour includes 2 nights in Istanbul too. To all who are thinking about going to the concerts, I recommend they see the great documentary/performance/interview movie Leonard Cohen: I Am Your Man . A collage of intimate interviews with the man himself, and performances by names like Jarvis Cocker, Nick Cave, Beth Orton, Rufus Wainwright, and Anthony of the Anthony and the Johnsons, this movie lets the audience put the songs of Cohen in the context of his Weltanschauung. Here is my favorite part of the movie, Anthony covering If It Be Your Will , which coincides with his time in LA Zen Buddhist monastery.

Believe in it boys, believe in it, We will see beautiful days, sunny days, We will beat Galatasaray in Inonu Stadium, We will sing songs of championship!

I was in i due forni , which makes the best pizza in berlin yesterday. the discussion lead -don't ask me how, I guess I was too hungry- the 3 vegetables whose absence would make the world unbearable. I knew my answer beforehand, onion, garlic, and artichoke. What I was no sure about their order. After a quite some contemplation I have came up with the ordering in the last sentence. I want to praise this delicious vegetable which can render almost every type of food edible, with Pablo Neruda's poem "Ode to Onion"... Ode to Onion Onion, luminous flask, your beauty formed petal by petal, crystal scales expanded you and in the secrecy of the dark earth your belly grew round with dew. Under the earth the miracle happened and when your clumsy green stem appeared, and your leaves were born like swords in the garden, the earth heaped up her power showing your naked transparency, and as the remote sea in lifting the breasts of Aphrodite duplicating the magnolia, so did the ear...

He definitely had an interesting life... Carelessness. I lost my one true love. I started drinking. The first thing I know, I'm in a card game. Then I'm in a crap game. I wake up in a pool hall. Then this big Mexican lady drags me off the table, takes me to Philadelphia. She leaves me alone in her house, and it burns down. I wind up in Phoenix. I get a job as a Chinaman. I start working in a dime store, and move in with a 13-year-old girl. Then this big Mexican lady from Philadelphia comes in and burns the house down. I go down to Dallas. I get a job as a "before" in a Charles Atlas "before and after" ad. I move in with a delivery boy who can cook fantastic chili and hot dogs. Then this 13-year-old girl from Phoenix comes and burns the house down. The delivery boy — he ain't so mild: He gives her the knife, and the next thing I know I'm in Omaha. It's so cold there, by this time I'm robbing my own bicycles and frying my own fish. I stumble on...

We play Porto tonight. If we beat them, qualify for the second round in the champions league. It is for this exactly this hope, and the excitement that send shivers up and down my spine that I love Besiktas... And nothing can describe my feelings better than the Besiktas chant we wrote from a poem by one of the greatest Turkish poets, Nazim Hikmet . Believe in it children, believe in it! We will see beautiful days, sunny days... We will beat Porto, and sing chants of glory... Do open http://forum.forzabesiktas.com in an Internet Explorer window to hear the song based on the poem.

Bob Dylan's Blonde on Blonde is my all-time favorite album. I know so many good albums, but none has so many hits in a row. Take out Pledging My Time and I can close my eyes and listen the whole album. I've been asking myself what is so special about the album. I guess there are three reasons. First of all it is the only Bob Dylan album, where the music matches and sometimes surpasses the quality of the lyrics (especially I Want You). The multi-layered and multi-chromatic and in the artists own words "mercury-like" sound is open for discoveries. Secondly there is a general feeling of mysticality to the album. It is like knowing something exists in the heart, but not being able to be sure about it's existence. It's as if Dylan found a clue about the "direction home" he talks about in Like a Rolling Stone (Sarah?), but lost it on a drunken night, and went searching for it in a trip... This feeling is most obvious in Visions of Johanna which brings me t...