they say to judge a man

look at his shoes

but in my case

look at my socks

their holes have been darned by sophie

exquisite

my god!

what have i done

to deserve this fate

good socks

with natural fibres

are important

and to fix them when they wear out too

che guevara writes that

a guerrilla fighter needs good boots as well as

needles thread and buttons

i read that book

replacing the words

guerrilla fighter

with

poet

up up! ezgi arms stretched up towards me

up cos thats where the action is

i lift her up

hold her close

its fun with her on my shoulders

but the best stuff happens when we get low

kneel down bob down get on the floor

daddy sit

daddy sit

we go eye to eye

nose to nose

smile to smile

sophies parents used to call her and alex

the floor people

we ought to be a floor family

floor poets

floor friends

floor society

cos you know its a good culture

when people

especially the old

sit on the ground

no problem

they say humans first encountered shame

when they stood on two legs

exposing themselves

in turkey

two types of toilets

a la turka / turkish – squat

a la franga / french – sit

and they say a la turka

is better for you

but whats this fixation with highness anyway?

your highness your majesty your excellency…

dilân says to me

i wanna be a pop star when i grow up

a famous pop star

could i be a famous pop star dad?

and i say

maybe

knowing tone matters

knowing all in good time

knowing its not just what i say

knowing its what i do

gotta hit the right notes

i was warned young

youre not an artist

youll never be an artist

like it was above us

or below us

in this country there are ladders

to climb

and there are different ways to do it

in our backyard my uncle says

i like your trees

a paperbark and a birch

the old lady next door hates them i say

cos of the leaves

is she a wog? he asks

italian i say

us wogs in this country cant appreciate nature he says

were too obsessed!

and i think its to do with the inability to feel pleasure

and the fear of pain

my dad advised me

dont be a corporate

theyll own you

be a professional

like a physio or a teacher

but im writing these poems

writing against the numbness

i heal and preach

but sell my labour too cheaply

warm / a dog snoozing on sunned floorboards

cold / the tick-tock of a vice chancellors rolex

remember

beware all promotions

and higher duties

im being stretched in every direction

am i trying to feed

the phantoms

before the flock?

am i the asshole?

what does writing make possible

for us

look!

ezgi pulls our shoes off the rack

brings them to us

mummi baba dyaan eggi

shuuussss

she is determined

no matter how long it takes

puts on her socks / often inside out

puts on her shoes / usually the wrong foot

but loves it

no one knows the floor better

she points to a spot

baba baba baba

now she brings me my runners

the new ones

blue was full price

grey and orange were both half price

and i was about to buy grey until

dilân said

ezgi will like those

so i chose the orange

sophies says

kids are so disrespected by adults

they need advocates

and i say 100%!

they say this is a mans world

but its an adults world too

children are no less intelligent

than us! put some respect on their world

they say parenting is all about connection

which is to say

presence

and unconditional love

and when theyre playing up

remembering to get down

gotta have their back

even when the worlds on ya back

have you learnt yet that lifes a struggle?

its getting late early and sophie

and me are arguing in the kitchen

the kids are asleep and my voice is too loud

and its not enough to call for a ceasefire

you have listen calmly first

you have to concede with grace

dont take it personally

hold onto the big picture

its ok youll keep your dignity in tact

im sorry for this but not for that

domestic bliss outta whack

going to sleep now but first a hug a kiss…

forget the money

would you rather a picasso or a gumtree?

my coworker says fluoro runners are a dealbreaker

hasnt seen my orange ones yet

shes concerned with sally rooneys use of punctuation

are capital letters anti-worker?

are forward slashes dialectical?

are semicolons proletarian?

ezgis favourite book is goodnight gorilla

a cheeky little gorilla pinches the keys off the

zookeepers belt

and frees all the animals

they escape but only to follow the zookeeper home

into his bedroom for the night

and all we really want is to be together

seven sleeping in a one bedroom flat

seventy living in a cul-de-sac

seven dancing in one room

seven billion under the moon

on smoko

i see a father berate his toddler in an alleyway

and what makes it more terrible

is he does it standing up

and looking down

pointing his finger

i see my errors and wanna say

get down!

get down bro!

kneel down and get eye to eye

the dynamics of disaster

the cinematics of crisis

these are matters of mathematics

decrease the altitude

improve our attitude

take a breath

and another

time lurks between every beat

i consider the difference between 2 and 5

to be enormous!

far larger than between 5 and 8…

ezgi opens up the tupperware drawer

dilân says oh there are my rollerskaters

and starts sliding across the floorboards

with containers on her feet

and so ezgi does too

i feel lucky to be alive and awake to see it

talking isnt everything

gorillas dont talk

talking doesnt always work

before language we have signs

we are always emitting signs

scare-weee! scare-weee! ezgi says

her eyes wide open

shes crouching shes trembling

gorrr-willahh scare-weee!

she went to the zoo today

and the gorilla emitted signs

at home i try not to be so moody

try not to emit certain signs…

doing the dishes

charging your phone

rubbing your feet

picking you flowers

whats your love language?

whats your favourite scent?

daddy daddy! nooo nooo!

the child is trying to tell you something

ok im putting my phone away

im tuning in now

hey babe whaddaya reckon?

the small is too small

the large is too large

and theres no medium

dilân has put a cardboard screen into

my old phone case

and drawn coloured spots for apps

and a flower as the home button

she lays on the couch scrolling and

says i wish we had a tv

me too sorta

thats a desire i can understand

each choice manifests some deprivation

but we get to create something else i say

and one day we might have a house with a

fireplace

and sit around it

in the meantime

i set up my typewriter and

she starts banging away on it

my mind wanders

even as i read her a book at bedtime

my minds running

our gutters are growing shrubs and grasses and im

appreciating trees clinging to cliff faces and

comrades

im burning the candle at both ends

burning ender with both candles

writing writing

making enemies

rocking the family boat

no friends but eyelids

they say theres a skill shortage

but of what kind?

ania used to say

my friend is a plumber and a poet! i think i

couldve been a lawyer like kafka

and written on the side…

but the side is the real thing

and the front is a front

when they say inspiration

i think energy

kafka wrote letters

ania made phone calls

i play hide-n-seek

and shark at the swimming pool

now sophie says

fuck that doors squeaky

we might needa put some mdma on it!

sleep deprivation is a torture method

that can produce creativity

guyotat starved himself to break new language

ezgi says hiyah hiyah!

dilâns learning to write

her words slant downwards

i rule lines across the page

i teach her to rule lines too

but they also slant

and when she writes the letters sit

way above the line and when i say

get them down

make them touch

she just extends them lower

and what about the hanging g y p and j

and how about baskan when the ş gets a cedilla

and goes shhhhh

i started using it before she was born

suddenly aware of what constituted me

now i teach her

there are worlds beyond the

imperial keyboard

that open up

the dog of critique gets off the leash

bites the alphabet

menaces the mounted cop

language as an eruption

that you can try plug

but what for?

lets be unruly

some of us find out late

our hairs curly

the cedilla is a tuft of language

a lock of hair

you should see dilâns cedilla

a thing of awesome power

like a treble clef but wilder

going lower and lower

drilling for lifes magma

her â is circumflexed

her ş is cedillaed

her i is dotted even as a capital

but at school she learns that

the ş i â are outside the accepted realm

and our curiosity is a problem to be chopped down like a backyard tree…

today i saw an old mitsubishi magna

with an earth belt

dangling from the rear

completing the cars electrical circuit

and roared YEEEW!

but why was the toyota hilux

named to be hi and lux?

was it the cassette deck?

a working-class ute naturally aspirated

aka no-turbo no-superchargers no-delusions

now for middle managers and p-platers

yet in other places the vehicle of choice for

militant groups

with rocket launchers and liberation visions

sun ra reckons

sound can do lots of things

sound can wash clothes!!!

so i turn the music up now

and its the bass

the low end that moves the furniture

and grime

the wealth of the world

is created by ordinary people

dont fall for bad ideas

the vitality of society

comes from below

children and workers

when a guillotine was set up outside

the jeff bezos mansion

the subtext was

end world hunger with one swift blow

fascism is the libido gone wrong

communists have better sex

east german women reported having

twice as many orgasms as their west german counterparts

theres a time to lie down

and a time to stand tall

all together

chin up

breathe deep and pipe up!

they have not broken you

they have not broken you in

to serve them

thats why youre here on the picket

or at the rally

together

remember how michelle obama

responded to harassment and abuse

by saying

when they go low

we go high?

did she mean drones?

instead we gotta say

when they go low

we go lower

which is to say by any means necessary

think of weapons

such as lullabies

they are important

im in bed lying between ezgi and dilân

putting them to sleep

singing twinkle twinkle

frère jacques

solidarity forever

and fış fış kayıkçı

dilân is asleep

ezgi is wriggling and wailing

mummi mummi

i soothe her by whispering

youre safe ezgi

youre here with baba and dilân

youre safe canım

the revolution will come

a better world emerges with concrete analysis

everyday actions

alliance building

the rev is way of living

as i try to remember woody guthries lullabies

did you know he made two kids albums?

a socialist doesnt just beat fascists

but puts kids to sleep too

im sorry sophie that the labour is never spread fairly

but ill do my bit

ill keep trying

ill rub your feet

as these forces flow through me

just a peasant with a degree

under this yoke

playing limbo

scribbling on scraps of paper

a low theory

art not high and away but here and now

art in caves and socks

we got a toehold!

goodnight guerrilla