Ahmed Fırat

“EINMAL,
da hörte ich ihn
da wusch er de Welt,
ungesehn, nactlang,
wirklich.

Eins und Unendlich,
Vernichtet,
Ichten.

Licht war. Rettung.”
― Paul Celan

“Poetry is perhaps this: an Atemwende, a turning of our breath. Who knows, perhaps poetry goes its way—the way of art—for the sake of just such a turn? And since the strange, the abyss and Medusa’s head, the abyss and the automaton, all seem to lie in the same direction—is it perhaps this turn, this Atemwende, which can sort out the strange from the strange? It is perhaps here, in this one brief moment, that Medusa’s head shrivels and the automaton runs down? Perhaps, along with the I, estranged and freed here, in this manner, some other thing is also set free?”
― Paul Celan

“Spring: trees flying up to their birds”
― Paul Celan

“rush of pine scent (once upon a time),

the unlicensed conviction
there ought to be another way
of saying
this.”
― Paul Celan, Glottal Stop