YOUR FACE AND THE TOLLING OF BELLS

it was like spring time, laughing with you
and to touch the chimes of your face
a naked pomegranate, dispelled and tranquil

intimations of the forenoon, your face

at the meeting place of the autumn
in the closing seas of your face
the birds flew like poisoned arrows
the summer blindfolded at the bottom of a wall

what is left of your face, a rusty shadow
the receding forest, the flower in mourning
pieces of broken glass, the colours of spring

how do birds get accustomed to losing a sky?

ah, I'm late in learning about the rain
a naked pomegranate, defeated and somber
where the rotting autumn, your old face
vanished with the tolling of the bells

~Ayten Mutlu~ (Translated by Emine Dilek)

AN APOCALYPTIC CHAIN OF MELODY

in my destiny I am an unimaginably huge wound
my face sucks in blood as I wipe it with my handkerchief
my voice scatters in the wind that of the fall
my letters intermingle with the pollen

letters are the alchemy of defying the world
to songs left unfinished
they are an ever-changing malignity
they are that stagnant water which churns
in my oversized universe which won't fit into books:
like a lilac stain
they seem to leave to leave a trace in the night

so, with a new cause the dawn is breaking
filled with the cries of leaves gone berserk
as I keep pouring my venom on my wound
the sentences turn into an apocalyptic chain of melody
let the sun fall on my forehead, my sweat turn cold
at the most challenging point of my epileptic anguish

no, my love, I will not spell out this song for you
with its aroma discarded, metamorphosed in riots
I have long since stamped my seal
put down my clumsy signature
on the most demanding part of life
and at every sunrise I have brushed my teeth
pressing life hard onto my flesh

come on, pick up that comb that adores poems
and start the day combing your hair

~Metin Cengiz ~ (Translated by Emine Dilek)

How Very Close Your Soul with Mine ~Rumi~

Recited by Sina from book of Rumi fountain of fire , by Nader Khalili , original music by Hamoon Tehrani..

DON’T LET HE CLOUDS COMMIT MURDER

Mothers are the ones make a man, a man.
Lightness goes in front of us.
Did not a mother give birth to you too?
Don’t kill the mothers Messieurs!
Don’t let the clouds commit murder.

A six year old boy is running,
His kite is going through the trees.
You have run like this once upon a time.
Don’t kill the children Messieurs!
Don’t let the clouds commit murder.

Brides comb their hair in the mirror,
Searching for someone in it
Of course you were searched like this too
Don’t kill the brides Messieurs!
Don’t let the clouds commit murder.

In old age one should remember only
The sweet memories
It’s a shame, don’t kill the elders
Messieurs, you are old ones too…
Don’t let the clouds commit murder.

~Nazim Himet~ 1955 –Translated by Emine Dilek

Synthesis

A Book of Torture Methods
This stone tablet
But where printed
In Babylon
In Babylon then there is a child
One who uses and uses us
But we are not this
That greets us
On the very first pages
The eyes of another
The mouths,the lips of another
Printed in Babylon
Onto our lives
As they open out
One by one

Ece Ayhan (translated by Neil Doherty)

WHILE I LOOK IN YOUR EYES

While I look in your eyes
Sun scented soil is dizzying my head
In an outfield, among the grains
I am lost
An endless abyss with green sparkles
Like the ever-changing matter, your eyes
Gives away its secrets bit by bit each day
But
Will never surrender



Nazim Hikmet
Translated by Emine Dilek

COME

I know we don't have anyhting to talk about
But take your eyes with you and come
The wound in your hand
Your silence
Your dilettante
I don't believe if someone loves me
If someone loves you
You'll be ashamed
Even as if carrying pitty for an unknown illness, still come
I know we don't have anyhting to talk about
But you have my sorrow, make sure you bring that too, and come...


Cezmi Ersoz
Translated by Emine Dilek

LIKE THIS ~by RUMI~

If anyone asks you
how the perfect satisfaction
of all your sexual wanting
will look, lift your face
and say,
Like this.

When someone mentions the gracefulness
of the nightsky, climb up on the roof
and dance and say
like this?

If anyone wants to know what "spirit" is,
or what "Gods fragrance" means,
lean your head towards her or him,
keep your face there close.
Like this.

When someone quotes the old poetic image
about clouds gradually uncovering the moon,
slowly loosen knot by knot the strings
of your robe.
Like this?

If anyone wonders how Jesus raised the dead,
don't try to explain the miracle.
Kiss me on the lips.
Like this, like this.

When someone asks what it means
to "die for love" point
Here.

If someone asks how tall I am, frown
and measure with your fingers the space
between the creases on your forhead
This Tall.

The soul sometimes leaves the body, then returns.
When someone doesnt believe that,
walk back into my house.
Like this.

When lovers moan,
they're telling our story
Like this.

I am a sky where spirits live,
stare into this deepening blue,
while the breeze says a secret
Like this

When someone asks what there is to do,
light the candle in his hand
like this.

How did Joseph's scent come to jacob?
like this.

How did Jacob's sight return?
Huuuuuuuu.

A little wind cleans the eyes.
like this.

When Shams come back from Tabriz,
he'll put just his head around the edge
of the door to surprize us.
Like this.

EVERYTHING DEPENDS ON YOU

You are as heavy as the ground pulls you,
As light as your wings flutter..
You are as alive as your heart beats,
As young as your eyes see distance...
You are as good as the people you love,
As bad as the people you hate..
Whatever the color of your eyebrows and your eyes are,
Your color is what the one facing you sees..
Don't think that what you lived is what you gained:
You are as close to the end as you lived; however long you live,
Your life is as long as you love..
You are as happy as you can smile.
Don't be sad, know that you will smile as much as you cry
Don't think that everything is over,
You will be loved as much as you love.
The value nature gives you is in the rise of the sun
And you are as human as the value you give to the one facing you.
If you will lie one day;
Let the one you address believe you as much as the trust for you.
The longing for the loved one is in the moon light,
And you are as close to your love as you long for.
Don't forget, you are as wet as it rains,
As warm as the sun warms you.
You are as alone as you feel alone
And as strong as you feel strong.
You are as beautiful as you feel beautiful..
This is life!
This is living,
You live as much as you remember this
When you forget this, you feel as cold as every breath you take
And you are forgotten as soon as you forget
A flower is as beautiful as it is watered,
Birds are as sweet as they chitter,
A baby is as baby as it cries.
And you know everything as much as you learn, learn this as well,

YOU ARE LOVED AS MUCH AS YOU LOVE...

~Can Yücel

EYES

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, so docile
The hands I said!
Bring out the hands!

In our age, love is an opposition
Let us unite to cast two single shadows...

Edip Cansever
Translated by Talat Sait Halman

I WAS THE ONLY ONE (Translated from Turkish)

Nobody really loved you actually,
I was the only one,
Not like as it were…
I loved you as quenching my thirst
As satisfying my hunger
As fully
Nobody really loved you actually
Hesitated to love you
But I loved you, as burning
Knowingly
Like I have lost my mind
Like someone put a pistol on my forehead
Like I had to
Like I did not have any other choice
I was the only one loved you,
And you never loved me actually
Like you loved anyone else…

Can Yücel

A BAD CONSCIENCE

the truth is
first I saw the colour yellow, then
all the rest
it was an infant lost in thought with her toy
in the sky


the man and the child
were both walking ahead and watching
with half closed eyes
not having the slighest interest
in the rainbow above


I swear
I have a bad conscience since that very day
for not having pointed to the child
the seven colours all at once

(Translated by Cevat Çapan)

ALEA IACTA EST

Attila crossed the Danube
Hannibal crossed the Alps
Caesar crossed the Rubicon

And I crossed
My self
Burning all the flowers behind me

Can Yucel (1926-)
Translated by Murat Nemet-Nejat

Thirty-Three Bullets

I.

This is the Mengene mountain
When dawn creeps up at the lake Van
This is the child of Nimrod
When dawn creeps up against the Nimrod
One side of you is avalanches, the Caucasian sky
The other side a rug, Persia
At mountain tops glaciers, in bunches
Fugitive pigeons at water-pools
And herds of deer
And partridge flocks...

Their courage cannot be denied
In one-to-one fights they are unbeaten
These thousand years, the servants of this area
Come, how shall we give the news?
This is not a flock of cranes
Nor a constellation in the sky
But a heart with thirty-three bullets
Thirty-three rivers of blood
Not flowing
All calmed to a lake on this mountain



II.

A rabbit came up from the foot of the hill
Its back is motley
Its belly milk-white
A mountain rabbit, pregnant, lost up here
Its heart heaved to its mouth, poor thing
It can draw repentance from man.
The hour was solitary, a solitary time
It was faultless, naked dawn

One of the thirty-three looked
In his body the heavy void of hunger
Hair and beard all tangled
Lice on his collar
He looked, and his arms were wounded
This lad with hellion heart
Looked once at the rabbit
Then looked behind
His delicate carbine came to his mind
Sulking under his pillow
Then came the young mare he brought from the plain of Harran
Her mane blue-beaded
A blaze on her forehead
Three fetlocks white
Her cantering easy and generous
His chesnut mare
How they had flown in front of Hozat!

If he were not now
Helpless and tied like this
The cold barrel of a gun behind him
He could have hidden on these heights
These mountains, the friendly mountains, know your worth
Thank God, my hands will not put me to shame
These hands that can flick off with the first shot
The burning tobacco ash
Or the tongue of the viper
Sparkling in the sun
These eyes were not duped even once
By the ravines waiting for avalanches
By the soft, snowy betrayal of cliffs
These knowing eyes
No use
He was going to be shot
The order was final
Now the blind reptiles will devour his eyes
The vultures his heart.

III.

In a solitary corner of the mountains
At the hour of morning prayer
I lie
stretched
Long, bloody...

I have been shot
My dreams are darker than night
No one can find a good omen in them
My life gone before its time
I cannot put it into words
A pasha sends a codded message
And I am shot, without inquest, without judgment

Kinsman, write my story as it is
Or they might think it a fable
These are not rosy nipples
But a dumdum bullet
Shattered in my mouth...

IV.

They applied the decree of death
They stained
The half-awakened wind of dawn
And the blue mist of the Nimrod
In blood
They stacked their guns there
Searched us
Feeling our corpses
They took away
My red sash of Kermanshah weave
My prayer beads and tobacco pouch
And left
Those were all gifts to me from friends
All from the Persian lands

We are guardians, relatives, tied by blood
We exchange with families
Across the river
Our daughters, these many centuries
we are neighbours
Shoulder to shoulder
Our chickens mingle together
Not out of ignorance
But poverty
We never got used to passports

This is the guilt that kills us
We end up
Being called
Bandits
Killers
Traitors...

Kinsman, write my story as it is
Or they might think it a fable
These are not rosy nipples
But a dumdum bullet
Shattered in my mouth

V.

Shoot, bastards
Shoot me
I do not die easyly
I am live under the ashes
I have words buried in my belly
For those who understand
My father gave his eyes on the Urfa front
And gave his three brothers
Three young cypresses
Three chunks of mountain without their share of life
And when friends, guardians, kin
Met the French bullets
Out of towers, hills, minarets

My young uncle Nazif
His moustache still new
Handsome
Light
Good horseman
Shoot, brothers, he said
Shoot
This is the day of honour
And reared his horse...

Kindsman, write my story as it is
Or they might think it a fable
These are not rosy nipples
But a dumdum bullet
Shattered in my mouth...


AHMET ARIF

Translated by Murat Nemet-Nejat (1982)

A SAD STATE OF FREEDOM

You waste the attention of your eyes,
the glittering labour of your hands,
and knead the dough enough for dozens of loaves
of which you'll taste not a morsel;
you are free to slave for others-
you are free to make the rich richer.

The moment you're born
they plant around you
mills that grind lies
lies to last you a lifetime.
You keep thinking in your great freedom
a finger on your temple
free to have a free conscience.

Your head bent as if half-cut from the nape,
your arms long, hanging,
your saunter about in your great freedom:
you're free
with the freedom of being unemployed.

You love your country
as the nearest, most precious thing to you.
But one day, for example,
they may endorse it over to America,
and you, too, with your great freedom-
you have the freedom to become an air-base.

You may proclaim that one must live
not as a tool, a number or a link
but as a human being-
then at once they handcuff your wrists.
You are free to be arrested, imprisoned
and even hanged.

There's neither an iron, wooden
nor a tulle curtain
in your life;
there's no need to choose freedom:
you are free.
But this kind of freedom
is a sad affair under the stars.

Nazim Hikmet
Translated by Taner Baybars

Poem 2 (Translated from Turkish)

What kind of farewell is this? what kind of goodbye?
Your eyes say stay, your lips say go..
Your gaze is the key, your eyes are the lock,
Your hands say open, your lips say go..

A.S.İlkan

I Loved The Possibility (Translated from Turkish)

I loved the possibility of you loving me one day,
With you at a breakfast cafe in Agri
With you at a small diner on the road
Its place known by the people
Because they had to
With you on top of a dusty mud roof of any one of the homes of DoguBeyazit
Which gazes the Mount Ararat in a consistency of a mystical dark tea
I loved the possibility of being with you
In a human hand’s sweaty geography
I loved the possibility of you loving me!

YILMAZ ERDOĞAN

Phenomenal Woman ~by Maya Angelou

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I'm telling lies.
I say,
It's in the reach of my arms
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.
I say,
It's the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist,
And the joy in my feet.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me.
They try so much
But they can't touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them
They say they still can't see.
I say,
It's in the arch of my back,
The sun of my smile,
The ride of my breasts,
The grace of my style.
I'm a woman

Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Now you understand
Just why my head's not bowed.
I don't shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It's in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
the palm of my hand,
The need of my care,
'Cause I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Salvation

Now I know the salvation comes,
When you stop asking the questions
Your heart can't answer!

Which One...

You are loving someone else,
Someone else is loving me...
Which one of it hurts me more,
I'm still yet to see...

Carzy Moon

Crazy moon
Turning me insane.
Ten thousand lovers
I only want you.
Useless logic
Does not get me there.
Because I've learned to live
With my open wounds...

I AM THAT I AM

Translation from an ancient Egyptian text carved into a doorway, a sacred place.

"I have, at last, reached MY goal,
And solved the secret of MY soul.
I am THAT, to whom I prayed,
THAT, to whom I looked for aid.
I am THAT, whom I did seek.
I am MY own mountain peak.

I, upon creation look,
As a page from MY own book.
For I am the ONE, the many make,
Of substance, which from ME I take.
For ALL is ME, there are not two,
Creation is MYSELF, all through.

What I grant, unto MYSELF,
I just take, from MYSELF.
And give it to ME, the only ONE,

What I want, I do but see,
MY wishes flowing forth from ME.
For I am the knower, and the known,
Subject, ruler, and the throne.
The three in ONE, is what I am,
And hell itself is but a dam,
That I did put in MY own stream,
When in a nightmare, I did dream.

That I did dream;
That I was not the only ONE,
And thus by ME, was doubt begun,
Which ran its course, 'til I awoke,
And found that I, with ME, did joke.
So now, that I do stand awake,
MY throne, I do surely take,
And rule MY kingdom, which is ME,
The master, through eternity."