A winter night
Came to my room
And sat crosslegged on the sofa
Drank my coffee
Looked at the fire in the stove
Then went as it came.
translatged by Ruth Christie & Richard McKane
Oktay Rıfat
The Law-Court by Oktay Rıfat
For their stony fields and pastures
They are crammed into the law-court
Crumbs of bread and tobacco in their pockets
In their wallets lists of witnesses
Thumbprint signatures proof of transactions
Their women and donkeys
Wait in the market-place
The courtroom is dingy it stinks of dung
But on the judge’s robe
The ribbons shine with propriety
translated by Ruth Christie & Richard McKane
Folk Songs by Oktay Rıfat
He loved the homesick songs of exile most
Played in ramshackle buses
On the tarmac road through mountain passes
translated by Ruth Christie & Richard McKane
Remembering Ahmet Haşım by Oktay Rıfat
The sun in mist;
A wild duck fallen from a cloud
Maybe a young great-crested grebe,
On its back a fine blood streak, perhaps
The color of water, perhaps of loneliness,
Head drooping, wet, it floats. A few feathers
Left in the silence, something like evening.
Shore and sky, twinned one under the other.
It struck water, turbid, unclear,
The rickety quay, remnants here and there,
Lake-birds hanging their heads in thought.
translated by Ruth Christie & Richard McKane
Swallow by Oktay Rıfat
A telegraph pole
Reminds me of a swallow
A swallow of a journey
Although a swallow once used to
Make me think of home
translated by Ruth Christie & Richard McKane
Bread and Stars by Oktay Rıfat
Bread on my knee
Stars in the distance far in the distance
I’m eating bread and looking at the stars
I’m so intensely lost in thought
That by mistake I eat
A star instead of bread
translated by Ruth Christie & Richard McKane
Stars by Oktay Rıfat
A notebook by the book
A glass by the notebook
A child by the glass
A cat by the child
And stars stars in the distance
translated by Ruth Christie & Richard McKane
View by Oktay Rıfat
A small lavender flower
A golden bee
Poppies without end
At this moment when
We love without thinking
Suddenly the sky begins
translated b y Ruth Christie & Richard McKane
A Rough Pillow by Oktay Rıfat
Where were we? Here were we?—Now it’s impossible to tell.
It was a rough pillow we shared!
It was us or perhaps someone else who was like us,
The fruit of our love, the immortal child.
Soaking wet from the rain of those dreams,
Our coming smeared with sticky blood
Will never go out of my mind,
The gentle pulling out like swimming
In the clear sunny waters of the days,
Turning into ourselves from our mother’s womb,
That first scream, that first blue, that first breath of air.
translated by Ruth Christie & Richard McKane
Leonard Durso 