love poem

Desert by Cevat Çapan

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Whenever
I sit at a table
to write something to you
I think of the tightrope performers
of my childhood and
all of a sudden
the pen in my hand
gets longer and longer
like that balance stick
and I soon
unlike that masterful tightrope performer
more like an inexperienced clown
fall down into the void
and start jumping
in the bouncing net of dreams.
Then
with the laughter
of my invisible spectators
echoing in my ears
I try to crawl
in a dry sea of ears.

translated by Zeynep Bağcı & Suat Karantay

Jet-Black by İlhan Berk

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One should describe you starting from your mouth
Youngster, your mouth is silk from China, conflagrations, a jet-black amber

Your mouth, a spring of ice-cold water, a general strike
A foolish sea throwing itself from one place to another

Your mouth is that kid who sells dark blue-winged birds in the Grand Bazaar
It’s a periodical titled Cornfield

These small, unpretentious rivers of ours are what your mouth is
Coming downhill a narrow street every day into a little square

Your mouth is “Time in Bursa City,” shyly roofed flea markets
Night as written in old Arabic

Kids, birds, summer times are all your that mouth is
Your mouth is a silken touch in my mind

translted by Önder Otçu

Glass by Ahmet Haşim

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Don’t think it’s rose, or tulip,
filled with fire, don’t hold it, you burn,
this rosy glass.

Fuzuli had drunk of this fire
Majnun, fallen with its elixir
into the state of this poem.

Those drinking from this cup burning
why, filling the night of love
with moans and mint, end to end.

Filled with fire, don’t hold it you burn
this rosy glass.

translated by Murat Nemet-Nejat

Invocation by Sowol Kim

/ zdunno03 / 3 Comments

O, name shattered.
O, name vanished into thin air.
O, name without response to my call.
O, name I will be calling till death.

You’ve gone before, I have said,
one last word etched on my heart.
O, my love nearest my heart,
nearest my heart.

The red sun hangs over the western peaks.
Even a herd of deer laments.
I am calling to you
as I stand on a lone hill.

I call to you till sorrow chokes me,
sorrow chokes me.
But my voice rings hollow in the vast void
between heaven and earth.

Should I turn to stone
I will be calling to you.
O, my love nearest my heart,
nearest my heart.

translated by Jaihiun Kim & Ronald B. Hatch

After the Rain by Cevat Çapan

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This time
I brought with me
the chill of the streets
in which we once walked.
Your breath and gaze will be filled with
shadows of the eaves falling upon us
and the smell of sweet basil outside the windows
if you hold my hand.
At this crossroads
where everything is lost
and found again
when we are face to face with all that crowd
you will realize
the further
time takes you away from me
the closer
it draws me to you.

translated by Zeyney Bağcı and Suat Karantay

My Mind by Kwang-Sup Kim

/ zdunno03 / 1 Comment

My mind resembles cabin-lake water
Rippled by stray winds,
Shadowed by flowing clouds.

Someone is throwing stones;
Another is fishing;
Another is singing.

By this shore on a lonely night,
Stars quietly float on the water
And the woods quietly lull the waves.

But each night I cover the lake with my dreams
Lest this shore be untidy
The day the white swan returns.

unknown translator