I don’t love her anymore
So
Why should I walk
Nights
By the tavern
Where ı drank
Every night
Thinking of her?
translated by Murat Nemet-Nejat
Orhan Veli Kanik
Trip by Orhan Veli Kanık
Birch trees are beautiful.
Still
When we arrive
At the last stop
I prefer
Being a river
To being a birch tree.
translated by Murat Nemet-Nejat
Quantitative by Orhan Veli Kanık
I love beautiful women,
I also love working women;
But I love beautiful working women
More.
translated by Murat Nemet-Nejat
People by Orhan Veli Kanik
All the time
But particularly
When I know you don’t love me,
I wish to see you
Like the people I saw
Sitting on my mother’s lap
As a kid. . .
There Is Something Like Alcohol by Orhan Veli Kanik
There is something like alcohol in this air;
It’s making a guy like me feel bad, bad,
Especially if I’m also homesick;
Your lover one place,
You someplace else;
It’s making a person like me feel sad, sad.
There is something like alcohol in this air;
It’s making a guy like me drink, drink.
Dream by Orhan Veli Kanik
My mother died
In a dream
Last night
And my waking up
Crying
Reminded me
Of my crying when
One holiday morning
My balloon slipped through my fingers
And I watched it
Rise
Into the sky.
translated by Murat Nemet-Nejat
Invitation by Orhan Veli Kanik
I’m waiting.
Come when the weather is such
That there can be no turning back.
translated by Talat Sait Halman
The Guest by Orhan Veli Kanik
I was bored yesterday towards the evening.
Two packages of cigarettes didn’t do me a thing;
Tried to write, no good either;
For the first time in years I played the violin,
Walked around,
Kibitzed watching people play backgammon,
Sang songs off key,
Caught flies–a boxful.
Finally, damn it,
I came here to see you.
Makes Me Dizzy by Orhan Veli Kanik
Getting a letter makes me dizzy;
Drinking raki makes me dizzy;
Going on a trip makes me dizzy;
What’s the meaning of all this, I don’t know;
Someone singing “My Kazim”
In Uskudar
Makes me dizzy.
translated by Murat Nemet-Nejat
My Shadow by Orhan Veli Kanik
I am through
Dragging it
All these years
At the tip of my feet.
About time
We live a little,
My shadow
At someplace,
I
Someplace else.
translated by Murat Nemet-Nejat
Leonard Durso 