Author: zdunno03

The Sea, the Memory, and the Woman by Seyfettin Başcıllar

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Everything started again in a harbor
The sea, the memory, and the woman.
Being naked, you were shivering
Your hair had come loose all the way down.
There were no flowers in the pot, no stars,
I didn’t have the money to buy you flowers.
Only the sky was left and a song,
There were patchy clouds in the sky,
You were there, your eyes too;
Besides your eyes were black as could be.
Everything started all over again.

translated by Talat S. Halman

Güler’s Hours of Love by Necati Cumalı

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That was a different time
Of all times,
Inside the tiniest earrings
Of white, round beads
She left by my bedside
Were light beams and shadows.
Perhaps Güler’s hours of love
Remained in those worlds. . .
Or maybe they flew away
Descending onto a vacant shore
With suns receding from rooms.
Day breaks, night descends.
Those kisses and caresses
Are now bright white pebbles
Found by children.

translated by Talat S. Halman

Weekly Agenda of Love by M. Sami Aşar

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Monday I expect a letter from you
Tuesday I pour my distress onto paper
Wednesday your voice resounds in the void
I shall sigh my heart out on Thursday
Friday I am in the theater of memories
Saturday is pregnant to so much
How about Sunday my love
Just wait for Sunday

translated by Talat S. Halman

I Woke, This Meant a Love in the World by İlhan Berk

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I woke, this meant a love in the world
–Your voice was like forsaking a rose.
I was black, like paper on all sorts of life
Each day my name was on those seas, could you see
For a millennium I was an M sound in Lower Egypt.

I struck at loves, didn’t anyone notice
For a millennium I unfurled you in my loneliness.
Whenever my name came up in your bright light
. . . . .This meant a love in the world.

In Egypt once upon a time solitude was lovely
It was a brave new sky one could cross with you
When I glanced, it grew like a lily in my memory
Now it’s a shadow that grows tall in my meadows
This is the way I woke which wasn’t really waking
. . . . .This meant a love in the world.

translated by Talat S. Halman

lazy day

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pasta and broccoli
the last of the figs
a nice cabernet
gifts to my housekeeper
neighbor kids
on this holiday
a breeze cooling
the back balcony
Diana Krall singing
in my living room
later a movie
something French
and read a bit more
of Kazantzakis
and Hemingway’s Boat
this could be
paradise
or close enough
at this stage
in finally
a quiet life

untitled poem 8 by Fernando Pessoa

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If sometimes I say that flowers smile
And if I should say that rivers sing,
It’s not because I think there are smiles in flowers
And songs in the rivers’ flowing. . .
It’s so I can help misguided men
Feel the truly real existence of flowers and rivers.

Since I write for them to read me, I sometimes stoop
To the stupidity of their senses. . .
It isn’t right, but I excuse myself,
Because I’ve only taken on the odious role, an interpreter of Nature,
Because there are men who don’t grasp its language,
Which is no language at all.

translated by Richard Zenith

Cloud by Tu Mu

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I see a cloud at day’s end and just can’t look away.
It has no mind at all, no mind and surely no talent:

a sad flake of bright jade radiant with color, drifting
ten thousand miles of clear sky, nowhere it began.

translated by David Hinton