there were those red heels
three inches high
and the dress
to match
floating discreetly
above your knees
an image
I take with me
wherever it is
I go
Month: September 2018
character: fate
there are some things
in life
you cannot avoid
and fate
is one of them
for fate is defined
by character
and character
is fate
not so briefly
there was no way
of knowing
then
of what of where of why
to follow
nor the debris
left behind
in your passing
not so briefly
in my life
“The point isn’t to know what you’re doing. The point is to have an experience doing something.”
from Douglas Moore’s Art of Quotation
“The point isn’t to know what you’re doing. The point is to have an experience doing something.”
Abz by Leyla Şahin
I come through the rains
my name, that of an old sea
before the earth was born
I swayed in the depths for thousands of years
I come through the winds
my name that of an old storm
slowly opening the velvet curtains
I escape to the meadows, in my eyes
a child’s mind
I come through the mountains
one half of my face in the mist
the other wandering in the woods
as joyful as a bird ready to migrate
I bring the spring with me
I come through the paths
path: the first ABC of my life
A: alienation, B: being together
M: meeting, Z: beyond all boundaries
I grasp an island of loneliness and come
love: the oldest scar on my face,
I come with my wounds.
translated by Ahu Dereli & Jean Carpenter Efe
Before the Mountain Beyond the Mountain by Ferit Edgü
My belief amounts to nothing–theirs to quite something
Down the mountain come the deer–I look at the deer
They at the mountain
I believe in scarcely a single thing, if anything in mankind
They trust in nearly everything, but never humankind
They look at the mountain–while I look beyond it
The deer go down the mountainside
Beyond the mountain
translated by Jean Carpenter Efe
North Star by Ferit Edgü
O sea–Please leave me in peace o sea
Summon me no more; without a sail
A poor boat am I, left alone, there’s now just me
Forgotten here on the sands
O sea–Share your secret with me
O north star, northwest wind, the storms
I who am a weary Kirghiz
Caught in the saddle of my horse
The whole winter long
O sea–Wreck me upon a rocky shore of yours, remote
Bury me in the waters so that this silent
Life of sailing finds an end
Because separated from you
I have naught but my name–No, say no more, shh
Let it be, let no one ever remember my name
translated by Jean Carpenter Efe
Nights by Şule Özmen
My love for the nights
Is so special
Because
I can see your eyes in the nights
In the nights
As enchanted as your eyes are
And your eyes are as black
AS THE NIGHTS ARE
translated by İlknur Gür & Jean Carpenter Efe
A Dream Far Away by Güven Turan
On the plains behind the cliff
An unsheltering wind
Uproots the shrubs
Gives way to cane beds
Even in mid summer
Seagulls
Flee southward to hunt
Without planting a tree
I can leave my body and go
Near one of the traps I’ve set
On the third day the moss hides
Within forty days the ice petrifies
To become so atttached to a dream
To expand the saddening wastes of the city
Even when her picture has decayed on the table
Before a new thunderstorm arises
One should pull the boat ashore
translated by Suat Karantay
Night by Yahya Kemal Beyatlı
Kandilli floated upon sleep–
We trailed the moonlight on the deep
We took a shining silver track
And spoke no word of turning back
Phantom trees on the dreaming crest
Pensive slopes where waters rest
The season’s end was such a time
The distant note of a hidden chime
We passed and vanished far away
Ere the dream was lost at break of day
translated by Bernard Lewis
Leonard Durso 