This house had a dog,
Very shaggy;
Named Chinchon;
It died.
This house also had a cat: Mavish.
It got lost.
The daughter of the house got married.
So many other bittersweet things
Happened last year.
Yes, they did.
But it’s like this.
Life’s always like this!
translated by Murat Nemet-Nejat
Month: October 2023
Aztec Omen that sounds much too familiar
By daylight a fire fell. Three stars together it seemed: flaming, bearing tails. Out of the west it came, falling in a rain of sparks, running to the east. The people saw, and screamed with a noise like the shaking of bells.
translated by Bernardino de Salagun into Spanish, then by John Bierhorst into English
a lesson all indigenous people learn
if you let
the snake in
it will eat you
it will eat you
the snake
Beard by Orhan Veli Kanik
Who knows how to make
Lanterns out of watermelon
The way I do.
To carve ogres on it
With a mother-of-pearl,
Jackknife.
To write couplets,
Write letters,
Go to bed,
Get up,
Satisfy my Halime
Of so many years?
We didn’t gray this beard
Of mine at the flour mill.
translated by Murat Nemet-Nejat
Poems on Traveling by Orhan Veli Kanik
1.
When you’re traveling,
The stars talk to you.
What they say
Is often sad.
2.
The song one whistles
While drunk in the evenings
Is merry.
But the same song
From the inside of a train window
Isn’t.
translated by Murat Nemet-Nejat
once again
incense burns
incense burns
cedarwood scent
eyes heavy
whiskey taking
its toll
but somehow
some way
the mind stays
focused
on the memory
of a dog
snuggling up
to a drunken lush
mumbling lyrics
to some song
half remembered
from a time
long since past
Arrivals by Orhan Veli Kanik
Quinces comes from Istanbul
And pomegranates;
I turned and saw
A sexy women coming;
As for income
It comes
Short;
Every day
Creditors come;
Oh mother, my sweet mother,
I can’t stand it;
The day’s end
Doesn’t come.
translated by Murat Nemet-Nejat
approaching midnight in Moda: how the world should end
a glass of sipping whiskey
a piece of toast
a night sky
minus stars
in a city
with countless millions
awake
the sound of laughter
of a woman
across the courtyard
to a joke told
in a language
I don’t understand
this is how
the world should end
if one could script it
in a hand
that could still hold
a pen
our lives
the long
the short
all too brief
and heaven
so very far
away
the last maverick
there he sits
the last maverick
a glass of whiskey
in his hand
staring up
at the stars
he watches the ash
grow on his cigar
and thinks
this is the way
life goes
an inch at a time
with the smoke
curling up
into the night sky
Leonard Durso 