Life is short
Birds are flying.
translated by Murat Nemet-Nejat
Month: January 2015
Drizzle by Cemal Süreya
The stars were on the sidewalk
As if at the Prophet’s coming
Because it had drizzled the night before
Dizzy like a cloud, I left her house
Skipping, skipping on the stars
Pleased as punch in the moonlight
Playing hopscotch
As at the Prophet’s coming
Because it had drizzled the night before.
translated by Murat Nemet-Nejat
“out of the beloved’s lip” by Ahmet Haşim
Out of the beloved’s lip
a carat of fire is this carnation
my soul knows it, its pain
As it falls, it’s hit around.
butterflies reeking of anger
my soul wheeling round. . .
translated by Murat Nemet-Nejat
“a river of fire” by Ahmet Haşim
A river of fire
between your soul and mine
mine unburdened itself
of this love’s impossible wound
As this glitter reflected on her
I ran away from that look, that lip
I looked at her silently, from afar,
as this river reflected on her. . .
translated by Murat Nemet-Nejat
Cat Was Its Name by Özdemir Asaf
Nobody
gave it a name
They called–it was deaf, it did not hear
The murmuring of a cat
Is both its thinking
And
Its hearing
I’m writing
This
Which is
My murmuring
One who hears
Wouldn’t write this
Wake up
It was a cat who wrote this.
translated by Ayşe Banu Karadağ
Surpassing Her Stature by Hidayet Karakuş
with her slender heels as soft as can be
weary of the calloused caresses she knows
her mane shying at the prodding of the stirrups
one woman
shall break the bit that hampers her within
and canter off to a new mountain lea
lips pursed by the drawstrings of longing sealed inside them
in her sleep she surpasses her stature and rein
though she seems often by quandary enchained
returning to that same page of her book
to read it painfully over and over again
translated by Suat Karantay
Brushed on the Wall of Xilin Temple by Su Tung-p’o
From the side it is a range; straight on, a peak.
Far, near, high, low, it never looks the same.
I can’t see Mount Lu’s true face
because I’m on the mountain.
translated by Tony Barnstone & Chou Ping
Written While Living at Dinghui Temple in Huangzhou, to the Tune of “Divination Song” by Su Tung-p’o
A broken moon hangs from a gaunt parasol tree.
The water clock has stopped, and people hush into sleep.
Who sees a hermit like me passing alone
like a shadow of a flying wild goose?
Startled and soaring off, I look back
with grief no one understands,
going from branch to branch, unwilling to settle,
and landing at last on a cold and desolate shoal.
translated by Tony Barnstone & Chou Ping
Mid-Autumn Moon by Su Tung-p’o
Six years the moon shone at mid-autumn;
five years it saw us parted.
I sing your farewell song;
sobs from those who sit with me.
The southern capital must be busy,
but you won’t let the occasion pass:
Hundred-league lake of melted silver,
thousand-foot towers in the pendant mirror–
at third watch, when the songs and flutes are stilled
and figures blur in the shade of trees,
you return to your north hall rooms,
cold light glinting on the dew of leaves;
calling for wine, you drink with your wife
and tell the children stories, thinking of me.
You have no way of knowing I’ve been sick,
that I face the pears and chestnuts, cup empty,
and stare east of the old riverbed
where buckwheat blossoms spread their snow.
I wanted to write a verse to your last year’s song
but I was afraid my heart would break.
translated by Burton Watson
on justice: for Ali
justice
you ask
where is it
as if it were
in hiding
in some corner
under the bed
around the block
behind that tree
you look confused
in your pain
you who believe
in a moral code
find it lacking
in others
not in another life
you say
but here now
let there be
justice
to whom though
can you plea
when the world
the heavens
don’t hear
and justice
is not blind
just nonexistent
a foreign concept
in an alien land
Leonard Durso 