Where was this melancholy then,
Crying so much,
Drifting off into song,
Partying seven days a week,
Today music, tomorrow a film,
The Family Garden café, you hating it,
You should have gone to the park,
My girl, known to everyone,
My girl,
Who I’m crazy about,
Hanging on her every word,
We made a palace of a hayloft.
Where,
Where,
Where was this melancholy then.

translated by George Messo

I should have been
Have been
A fish
In a bottle
Of booze.

Translated by Murat Nemet-Nejat

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

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

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

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

A fish falls asleep, this suits the ocean
The seagulls perch cheek by jowl
Side by side seagulls don’t pass through phases
They’re all the same age, the same height

Filter the soil, see with your hands
Side by side the seeds of the day
Neither before or after

Neither before or after
They founded cities one on top of the other
Wrapped them in fables.

translated by Sidney Wade & Efe Murad

The island ferry is a paddle-steamer.
Showy flags are draped everywhere.
Pastry-seller, coffee-maker, soda-hawker—
Merrily, Merrily, Life is But a Dream.

Muslim, Jew, Greek,
Sportsman, old man, consumptive.
Someone’s wig flies up and away, and someone’s skirt—
Merrily, Merrily, Life is But a Dream.

Blows away, the island wind blows away.
Makes you happy, makes you cross.
Who is occupying the luxury cabins?
Merrily, Merrily, Life is But a Dream.

translated by Sidney Wade & Efe Murad

The most beautiful woman, she was,
She combed her hair, all of it pubic hair,
When she sat, she squatted,
A bloody woman, a horse of wind,
It kept occuring to me how deceptive she was.

Which of her parts most? Of course, her mouth.
Attuned to all the feelings,
An Alhambra of a mixture of kisses,
In the timeless sea of the sheets
Her tactile mouth went up and down.

Oh, my eyes, now,
Have begun a crying that keeps on going,
A woman’s shirt is shrouding me,
The blue of the day is on that
The rooster of the night is in that.

translated by Omer Kursat

Did you ever attend a public bath?
I did.
The candle near me blew out,
And I became blind.
The blue of the dome disappeared.

They relit the candle on the navel stone.
The marble was wiped clean.
I saw some of my face on it.
It was bad, something awful,
And I became blind.
I didn’t expect quite this from my face.

Did you ever sob
While covered in soap?

translated by Omer Kursat