But now–
but now the wonder of life is
that it is at all,
this sticky sentimental
warm enclosure,
feels place in the physical
with others,
lets mind wander
to wondering thought,
then lets go of itself,
finds a home
on earth.
Month: April 2020
from Rhyming with Tzu-yu’s “Silkworm Fair” by Su Tung-p’o
I remember long ago when you and I were boys;
each year we dropped our books and raced to the fair.
Peddlers outdid each other hawking goods;
peasants stood gaping, ripe to be cheated–
when your poem came it brought back those times again.
I grieve less for home than for the years that are lost.
translated by Burton Watson
from Poems on asphalt by Orhan Veli Kanık
I wonder
If it’s only poets
Who stare at broken cobbles
And dream of gleaming asphalt?
translated by George Messo
“ An artistic endeavour comes into the world naked, unnamed, and vulnerable. Every creative effort requires the artist to wrest something from nothingness… “
from Douglas Moore’s Art of Quotation
An artistic endeavour comes into the world naked, unnamed, and vulnerable. Every creative effort requires the artist to wrest something from nothingness, a purposive cosmos from an apparently indifferent chaos.
Peter London, musician
Nothing is as it used to be by Cahit Sıtkı Tarancı
Nothing is as it used to be,
Neither am I.
I don’t care about myself for a long time,
Nor my appearance.
I walk barefoot now.
Neither flu nor cold scares me as they used to.
I have bigger problems, like everyone else, which mint and lemon are no good for.
I don’t mind the swollen tonsils relapsing every winter and spring,
I don’t eat or drink too hot or too cold, they all go by in a few days anyway.
Things go on.
Things go by.
Yet there are things that I swallow despite the pain they inflict.
Things which do not go on
Things which do not go by
I have trouble sleeping at times, but,
I don’t care about this sleeping thing anymore,
Since I’ve realized, there are things which do not disappear with sleeping anymore.
translated by Burak Tıraş
Leonard Durso 