Snow closed the road
you weren’t there
kneeling and facing you
I gazed at your face
with my eyes closed.
Ships won’t sail, planes won’t fly
you weren’t there
across from you I was leaning on the wall
I spoke and spoke and spoke
without opening my mouth.
You weren’t there
I touched you with my hands
my hands were on your face.
translated by Talat S. Halman
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
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
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
Slowly, slowly will you mount this staircase
–A heap of sun-tinged leaves upon your skirts–
And for a while gaze weeping at the sky. . .
The waters darken and your face grows pale,
Look at the scarlet air, for evening comes. . .
Bowed towards the earth, the roses,
Flame-like the nightingales bleed upon the boughs;
Has morning turned to bronze, do waters burn?
This is a secret tongue that fills the soul
Look at the scarlet air, for evening comes. . .
translated by Bernard Lewis
On this dark night of love
Wildly the nightingale sings,
Has Leyla left Mejnun?
I thought the Wild voice sang of parting pain.
On this dark night of love
I felt my grief, remembered you,
Burned like the love-lorn nightingale’s sad refrain.
translated by Bernard Lewis
Deep down, the night has massed again
My darling smiles in her wonted place
My darling who doesn’t come by day
Appears at night by the pool.
The moonlight a sash for her waist
The heavens her secret veil
The stars roses in her hand.
translated by Bernard Lewis
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
The snow falling hard through the night
sparkled in the starlight.
There is a house on a street in a city,
a wooden house so far away.
The child sleeping on the pillow
is plump and blond–my son.
There are no guests, no one.
Poor Istanbul out the window.
Shrill whistles screamed outside.
Loneliness feels like prison.
Munevver closed her book
and softly cried.
There is a house on a street in a city,
a wooden house so far away.
The snow falling hard through the night
sparkled in the starlight.
translated by Randy Blasing & Mutlu Konuk
Look! I am but a road to you
The road you tread every morning
I am a tree to you, the acacia
In whose shadow you wait for a bus.
Tell me who you are
Let me write at the corners of streets
I’ve lost myself in your town
Your name is my street.
Tell me where your house is
Do you like afternoons or evenings?
Let me knock on your door
Unlock and show me the secret garden.
Give me the padlock of your eyes
Let me close us off from the world
Look, this is my key
Unlock yourself, there is love about to emerge
Please do not hide it.
Being Present for the Moment
Website storys
Illustration, Concept Art & Comics/Manga
Singer, Songwriter and Author from Kyoto, Japan.
Singer, Songwriter and Author from Kyoto, Japan.
An online activist from Bosnia and Herzegovina, based in Sarajevo, standing on the right side of the history - for free Palestine.
A place where I post unscripted, unedited, soulless rants of a insomniac madman
Dennis Mantin is a Toronto-based writer, artist, and filmmaker.
Finding Inspiration
Off the wall, under the freeway, over the rainbow, nothin' but net.
An 'erm, what I doing with my life?' cabaret.
Artist by choice, photographer by default, poet and author by accident.
At Least Trying Too
A Journey of Spiritual Significance
Life in islamic point of view
Through the view point of camera...
L'essenziale è invisibile e agli occhi e al cuore. Beccarlo è pura questione di culo
In Kate's World
Leonard Durso 