20th Century Turkish poetry

Muezzin by Cemal Süreya

/ zdunno03 / 4 Comments

You hopped into bed,
But your hymen is on the table.
Never mind, Allah be praised.
There is more than one way to skin a cat.
Peel an orange and feed its slices to me.
I have a minaret, get hold of its charms,
Be my muezzin,
While the rain
Is pouring out in the street
And folks are keeping indoors
For their prayers.

translated by Murat Nemet-Nejat

Drizzle by Cemal Süreya

/ zdunno03 / 1 Comment

The stars were on the sidewalk
As if at the Prophet’s coming
Because it had drizzled the night before
Dizzy like a cloud, I left her house
Skipping, skipping on the stars
Pleased as punch in the moonlight
Playing hopscotch
As at the Prophet’s coming
Because it had drizzled the night before.

translated by Murat Nemet-Nejat

Cat Was Its Name by Özdemir Asaf

/ zdunno03 / 3 Comments

Nobody
gave it a name
They called–it was deaf, it did not hear

The murmuring of a cat
Is both its thinking
And
Its hearing

I’m writing
This
Which is
My murmuring

One who hears
Wouldn’t write this
Wake up
It was a cat who wrote this.

translated by Ayşe Banu Karadağ

Surpassing Her Stature by Hidayet Karakuş

/ zdunno03 / 3 Comments

with her slender heels as soft as can be
weary of the calloused caresses she knows
her mane shying at the prodding of the stirrups
one woman
shall break the bit that hampers her within
and canter off to a new mountain lea

lips pursed by the drawstrings of longing sealed inside them
in her sleep she surpasses her stature and rein
though she seems often by quandary enchained
returning to that same page of her book
to read it painfully over and over again

translated by Suat Karantay

Yellow Blight by Cemal Süreya

/ zdunno03 / 2 Comments

My breath is a red bird
In the auburn sky of your hair
When I embrace you
Your legs grow long beyond words

My breath becomes a red horse
I can tell from my burning cheeks
We are destitute our nights are short
Let’s make love at full tilt

translated by Talat S. Halman