I’m Orhan Veli,
Who wrote the famous line
“It’s a pity about Süleyman Efendi.”
I hear you’re curious
About my private life.
Then let me explain.
First I’m a man, that’s to say
I’m not some kind of circus animal.
I have a nose, ears,
But not all that shapely.

I live at home
And I have a desk job.
I came into this world
With a mother and father.
My head isn’t in the clouds,
And I’m not a paragon of virtue.
I’m not as modest
As the King of England
Nor as aristocratic
As Celal Bey’s stable boy.
I love spinach
And die
For puff pastry.
I don’t give a shit for wealth.
By God, I don’t.

I beat the streets
Without a bodyguard.
Oktay Rifat and Melih Cevdet
Are my best friends.
I have a girlfriend, respectable,
But I can’t tell you her name.
Let the literary historians find her.
I busy myself with pointless things too
But the only “pointless” thing I don’t do
Is busy myself with rotten poets.

Then again
Maybe I have a thousand other habits.
But what’s the point
In listing them all?
They’re all the same.

translated by George Messo