Published May 15th, 2025
by Şükrü Çiftçi
We were time thieves,
ungrown age-elders
remained from
a generationless childhood,
we stole the time from Kronos,
and the shadow has been broken in the image of the mirror.
However, we got up and grew towards the rain,
as if repairing a city respectfully.
Maybe birds pass,
maybe they pass quietly,
our gloom passes.
We were time thieves,
a repentance in the silhouette of the night,
we believed in incorrigible words,
We kept silent so that the world would not jump the rails.
We switched from dream to dream,
and we caressed a planet with our pretty hands.
We cursed fate at every station, or whoever it came across.
We were taken, captured in the chambers of the same heart,
the vagabonds of the same fate,
like a stone forgotten in the wild,
so hard, so miserable, so lost,
a touchstone broken in the middle of a city in the Middle East,
abandoned even by God,
like dying, namely, suddenly becoming the story of someone else.
We were time thieves,
looking for raki in cheap taverns.
We were not payee of anything from anyone.
Our footprints were decent,
we were offended ones left on the road,
a malarial sky above us.
We were time thieves,
looking for Abraham by the ant walk.
If we had put out the fire, we would have been flame,
we did not put it out, we have become ash.
We were time thieves,
the day came,
and the time stole us from ourselves.
About the Poet
Şükrü Çiftçi resides in Istanbul, Marmara, Türkiye.
Read the poet's biography on Şükrü Çiftçi's Artist Page.
This poem is included in Poetry World #12,
published in the Wax Poetry and Art Library.
Previously published in Europe Poetry Magazine:
Priestess of Games
by Maria Carbunaru
Europe Poetry Magazine is part of the Wax Poetry and Art Network.
- Visit the main Wax Poetry and Art Submissions Page to see all opportunities.
- Visit the Wax Poetry and Art Library.
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