poetry

A City and He Himself by Güven Turan

/ zdunno03 / 4 Comments

To dream of the sea
Even when looking at the sea
This is what he has long been doing
And imagining he is in a city
With trams along its streets
On yellow cut-stone edifices
Darkening iron balconies
The sound of pigeons
Pigeon droppings on the windows
But these are dreams
Neither opposite him nor
Anywhere

translated by Suat Karantay

On This Road by Ferit Edgü

/ zdunno03 / 6 Comments

The road’s asphalt
The sea so smooth
Soon, much too soon the day is done

The forest’s dry
Is the water ice
So that we
All of us, all of us have been deceived

The mountain’s steep
The road’s a threat
The sea so rough
How many how many how many
Have gone astray on these roads

translated by Jean Carpenter Efe

YOU’RE by Nazım Hikmet

/ zdunno03 / 5 Comments

You’re my bondage and my freedom
my flesh burning like a naked summer night,
you’re my country.

Hazel eyes marbled green,
you’re awesome, beautiful, and brave,
you’re my desire always just out of reach.

translated by Randy Blasing & Mutlu Konuk

On The Matter Of Romeo And Juliet by Nazim Hikmet

/ zdunno03 / 4 Comments

It’s no crime to be Romeo or Juliet;
it’s not a crime even to die for love.
What counts is whether you can be a Romeo or Juliet–
I mean, it’s all a question of your heart.

For instance, fighting at the barricades
or going off to explore the North Pole
or testing a new serum in your veins–
would it be a crime to die?

It’s no crime to be Romeo or Juliet;
it’s not a crime even to die for love.

You fall head over heels in love with the world,
but it doesn’t know you’re alive.
You don’t want to leave the world,
but it will leave you–
I mean, just because you love apples,
do apples have to love you back?
I mean, if Juliet stopped loving Romeo
–or if she’d never loved him–
would he be any less a Romeo?

It’s no crime to be Romeo or Juliet;
it’s not a crime even to die for love.

translated by Randy Blasing & Mutlu Konuk

First Month: at Ch’ung-jang House by Li Shang-yin

/ zdunno03 / 2 Comments

Secret behind locks and double bars, covered with green moss.
In the deepest corridors, innermost chambers, pacing to and fro.
A presage that the wind will rise–the halo round the moon.
The season of cold dews still, the buds unopened.
A bar sweeps past the flap of the blind. Endless tossing and turning.
A mouse unsettles the cobweb on the window, startles with brief suspicions.
With the lamp at my back I talk alone to a fragrance still in the air,
And unawares, just as before, sing Rise in the Night and Come.

translated by A.C. Graham

untitled love poem by Li Shang-yin

/ zdunno03 / 5 Comments

Coming was an empty promise, you have gone, and left no footprints:
The moonlight slants above the roof, already the fifth watch sounds.
Dreams of remote partings, cries which cannot summon,
Hurrying to finish the letter, ink which will not thicken.
The light of the candle half encloses kingfishers threaded with gold,
The smell of musk comes faintly through embroidered water-lilies.
Young Liu complained that Fairy Hill is far.
Past Fairy Hill, range above range, ten thousand mountains rise.

translated by A.C. Graham

You Who by Tekin Gönenç

/ zdunno03 / 2 Comments

you who
grow gallows within you

are weeping now leaning
your head against window panes
I know full well

the moon wanders over the night
as the callous city
emerges from its sheath
the child that forsook you
confined in it

and then start endless conflagrations
in the revolving mirrors of your soul
darting looks from every corner
whether you close your eyes
or open them wide

you who
went through so many cross-fires
you who
knew what love is and has been
what you’ve shared
was not a hybrid luminescence

why does this whirlpool
opening to the unknown
force the confines
of the power of imagination

you
pale face
why not let the self you’ve always kept for her
escape through the window

would it be better perhaps
just to shuttle to and fro
at the tip of a clumsy dagger
in the blind alleys of your heart

translated by Ender Gürol