for Ilhan Sami Çomak
no pointless wars of the heart
though Jupiter and Saturn
have been that close in the early
evening sky the waves
continue their rock and roll there’s
memory voices faces
the past on its own arc and the
present arc a rolling curve
nothing in the
dream nothing but a
weaving music sometimes violin
and strings sometimes brass and
voice and those ocean
waves it may be just the
radio (music) it may
just be beach the
dream disappearing in the
dawn and with that the remaining
sleep
Mark Statman is the author of four poetry collections, most recently That Train Again (2015) and A Map of the Winds (2013). He is the translator of Black Tulips: The Selected Poems of José María Hinojosa (2012)and Never Made in America: Selected Poems of Martín Barea Mattos (2017), andcotranslator of Garcia Lorca’s Poet in New York (2007, with Pablo Medina). Statman has also written extensively on teaching creative writing, including Listener in the Snow: The Practice and Teaching of Poetry (2000) and The Alphabet of the Trees: A Guide to Nature Writing (2007, with Christian McEwen). (Source: Poetry Foundation)