“İnek var!” an alien called to the driver.
“İnek mi var?” I replied to her great surprise
then suddenly as if by pure magic
inek appeared in front of my eyes.
It hadn’t!
“On a bus?” you may decide to ask me.
“Well not really,” I’d respond quickly to clarify.
“Outside there, beyond Maslak towers
“jumping over the moon fast as a flash.”
So everyone then looked out of the minibus
even those who didn’t understand what I’d said
but my pointing and screaming was pointless
as my humour was over their heads.
Or perhaps it wasn’t really that funny
if you didn’t know the old nursery rhyme
or if you were busy on to-day’s sudoku
or wanted to get off at this time.
I didn’t!
“İnecek var!” cried a helpful intellectual
who must have read the poor lady’s mind
so the driver stopped really quickly
alongside a red durmak yasaktır sign.
But perhaps that sign wasn’t really red
as I’ve chronic Daltonism of the red-green type
and I’ve probably got other impediments
but I’m terrific on the old black-white.
So the lady exited the minibus
and then started off back down the road
then I reflected on the inek happening
and the seed that I’d just sown.
Sort of!
It’s not that the language isn’t easy
and it’s not that the grammar can be so hard
and it’s not that the letters are different:
I’m just not the sharpest guy about.
Some words come to me quickly
while most others are downright hard to say.
Agglutination has a lot for to answer
and phrases aren’t easy to make.
There are times when I misunderstand words
and that would seem to apply to other aliens too
as an odd letter or few can matter
so it helps to have a decent IQ.
I don’t!
Thus I thank my original öğretmen who
in my “Colloquial Turkish” scribbled “limonlu çay”
and many more words and phrases appropriate
to get me through an Istanbul day.
“İnecek var!” I called to the driver.
“İnek mi var?” I heard to my great surprise
then suddenly as if by pure magic
inek appeared in front of my eyes.
