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
Turkish poet
The Key by Ceyhun Atuf Kansu
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.
translated by Ahu Dereli & Jean Carpenter Efe
Falling Leaves by Nazim Hikmet
I’ve read about falling leaves in fifty thousand poems novels
and so on
watched leaves falling in fifty thousand movies
seen leaves fall fifty thousand times
fall drift and rot
felt their dead shush shush fifty thousand times
underfoot in my hands on my fingertips
but I’m still touched by falling leaves
especially those falling on boulevards
especially chestnut leaves
and if kids are around
if it’s sunny
and I’ve got good news for friendship
especially if my heart doesn’t ache
and I believe my love loves me
especially if it’s a day I feel good about people
I’m touched by falling leaves
especially those falling on boulevards
especially chestnut leaves
translated by Randy Blasing & Mutlu Konuk
PRO PATRIA by Orhan Veli Kanik
What have we not done
For our mother-
land;
Some of us died;
Some gave speeches.
Full Of by Orhan Veli Kanik
We have seas, full of the sun;
We have trees, full of leaves;
From dawn to dusk we go and go and come
Among our seas, among our trees
Full of
The blues.
translated by Murat Nemet-Nejat
I Love You So by Ahmet Ada
You’ll stand waiting in the rain your eyelashes will grow long
Dusk will descend in a little while
To the water that runs softly to the lonesome asphalt roads
You will walk and your eyelashes will get wet tenderly
And love will accompany you
From the marble sidewalk
“I love you so,” the girl
Who has made a kite out of her heart will say
That girl who sheds leaves when you steal a look
A dawdler, you will walk
Your heart seething with flighty passions
On your lapel a flower that offers all of its fragrance
Inquiring into the loves that have an unhappy ending
The desk will study you, the water glass will be full
When that young girl awakes now
translated by Talat S. Halman
Suddenly by Nazim Hikmet
Suddenly something snaps in me and catches in my throat,
suddenly, in the middle of work, I jump up,
suddenly, in a hotel, in the hall, standing up, I fall into a dream,
suddenly, on the sidewalk, a branch whacks me in the forehead,
suddenly a wolf howls at the moon, miserable, enraged, starved,
suddenly stars hang from a swing in a garden,
suddenly I see myself in the grave,
suddenly my head is a sunny haze,
suddenly I cling to the day I started out as if it wouldn’t end,
and every time you float up to the surface. . .
translated by Randy Blasing & Mutlu Konuk
For Many Years. . . . by Kemal Özer
Perhaps the street I’ve gone into and come out of
for so many years will no longer look at my face
nor even remember my name. . .
the sky I carry over my head,
the table at which I have my meals, the bed that gives me haven,
the worries I can’t do away with
to all of them I should bid farewell
say good-bye to all of them at the dawn of this day.
And I should bid welcome my darling
with your face, hands, and voice
to all things that sparkle in my blood.
translated by Talat S. Halman
Eyes by Edip Cansever
It seems nothing can provoke
Our inner silence
No sound no word nothing
The eyes bring out the eyes!
Nothing else but this unites us
A leaf touching another leaf
So close and so docile
The hands bring out the hands!
In our age love is an opposition
Let us unite to cast two single shadows. . .
Now by Cengiz Bektaş
I long for my voice that found you
My voice fills the valley with your name
Giving one more dimension
To my heart all wet
On desolate mountaintops
It bounces of right and left
just without you
From tree to tree
I long for my voice that found you
Leonard Durso 