They call our passion love, let it be!Love is lava in every language!

They hide ability behind spirit
we
charge the soul with life with proficiency! skillfully!

Of course Iskender can love, too / if there is life in his lava!


If you remember, I told you I was doing my military service in Hopa. This is my master force. I completed my beginner’s force, which lasted for 2 months, in Ankara / Mamak Sergeant Battalion’s Technician Troop. As you can see, I’m here as a sergeant candidate corporal.

Oh the place where I undertsood the world was turning; Mamak!
We had a training field in Mamak surrounded by pine trees. I would watch the clouds, get lost in my plans and dreams during training. Watching the clouds in a field that large would give me immesurable excitement. And once or twice, I couldn’t answer questions in class and got caught making love to the clouds. I don’t care, It was worth the scolding. One forgets the cold and the hard times while thinking of those huge clouds moving witha great speed. It might sound funny, but I must say that many people got wounds in their ears because they couldn’t adapt to the weather conditions and their lives became hell. Well it’s not easy to be a soldier...

The poem above is from those days... I dated the book May 2002. We would wake up at five in the morning and try to shave with water that just wouldn’t flow. How? Try not to, and you’ll see. Going to the toilet that early in the morning required talent. I had understood how hard it was to live in a building with 500 others when I couldn’t even stand staying with 1 person in a flat for 3 days... Shave, get dressed, go to the muster, do the paperwork for market permission, hair-beard check, clothing check. Then go out to the regular army singing anthems... We would be on Mamak’s streets at 8 in the morning. On Sundays all the shutters would be closed and the coffee houses would be filled with soldiers. We would buy bagels from the bagel guy, go to a coffee house and play okey. I know the game well from Taksim-Tunnel, I would keep looking at people playing. To be honest, I don’t undertsand how a person could want to spend the whole day playing games on a table. Anyway, Taktak should have a point! You can guess that I would get bored after a while.

And so I did. I think it was the third week, I had bought pants and a t-shirt with the money my dear father had sent me. Every weekend, I would ask for the coffee house’s owner for permission, take my camouflage off, and change into my “civilian clothes” in a small room. We went to Kizilay with my soldier friend Ozcan Gicik from Izmir. Ozcan could be considered the master of that. He was going to the market in his civilian clothes ever since the first day he had come. He had already learnt all the ways...

Before long we were in Kizilay. First thing I did was to go to a bookstore. I didn’t forget to look at Ankara’s beautiful girls and flirt with them while searching the shelves for books. I first saw Kucuk Iskender’s naughty poem books, I pulled one of them out of the shelf; “a pair of leather gloves”. A couple of hours later, we went to a bar, had beer, talked about life and being soldiers with Ozcan... Before I forget, what we call friendship is also a crime partnership. Don’t you think so?

... We had come back, after handing in the market permission papers, muster, and dinner, I started reading the book. I still have it hidden in my cupboard. When I have some spare time I sometimes open and read it. I like this poem the most; Iskender can love! Whenever I read it I remember Iskender and my face is covered with a wicked smile!

As you know, Kucuk Iskender wrote poems for soccer players recently. And he was quite under the spotlight with those poems. To be honest, I liked them a lot. You know what I’m thinking; "Wheter or not the two Iskenders had an affair” and “Would he write a poem for Hasim, too, as a comission?” As a soldier, my salary wouldn’t be enough. But anyway!

I will make a painting here and send it to Iskender.
And that would make Hasim happy, too.
What do you think, wouldn’t that be nice?

2 November 2002
Artvin-Hopa