You Who by Tekin Gönenç

you who
grow gallows within you

are weeping now leaning
your head against window panes
I know full well

the moon wanders over the night
as the callous city
emerges from its sheath
the child that forsook you
confined in it

and then start endless conflagrations
in the revolving mirrors of your soul
darting looks from every corner
whether you close your eyes
or open them wide

you who
went through so many cross-fires
you who
knew what love is and has been
what you’ve shared
was not a hybrid luminescence

why does this whirlpool
opening to the unknown
force the confines
of the power of imagination

you
pale face
why not let the self you’ve always kept for her
escape through the window

would it be better perhaps
just to shuttle to and fro
at the tip of a clumsy dagger
in the blind alleys of your heart

translated by Ender Gürol

The Woman with a Pigeon in Her Soul by Tekin Gönenç

first came your voice
half-opening my doors
then you emerged leaving behind
a blind alley of puzzled clouds
o woman with a pigeon in her soul

your pitch-black hair streaming
you ran to and fro days on end
in the cross-currents of my being

shedding over me
the thousands of stars
concealed in your dimples
now tell me where your journey leads

should we all henceforth
each taking his own poem by the hand
enter from the opposite direction
the dead alley of butterflies

and yet you still abide with me
o woman with a pigeon in her soul