05/06/2011

My heart feels like a stone
Made up of some heavy metal
Sitting there enlarging
Anytime you pass through
My heart feels like a burden
A stop sign
Too big to spit out
Too bitter to swallow
My heart feels like a stone
Stepping, pounding, pressing on
Not moving,
Not yielding,
Not accepting
What’s going on

05/19/2011

You walk in the mud
Holding on to clouds
Feet dirty
Sticking on the ground
You can pull yourself up
Wash off and go on
Smell will leave with enough soap
But the memories
Of dirt
Of darkness
Will not leave you
So you need to clean
Clean the mud
Not the feet

04/29/2011

Where the roads cross
You hand over your heart to me
Like a precious stone.
Heaviness of the burden
Of the fragile beats-------
I can’t exchange it
With the bitter taste
Of the knife

GOODBYE

I have decided once in for all
Not to be your shadow anymore
On your almond tree…
Because the sun you love
Is killing me gently
I will not follow you in secret
Cool you down with my darkness
I will not tremble and move
Anytime you smile
I will stay in this corner
Stay collected
Stay still
Stay wondered

It's This Way

I stand in the advancing light,
my hands hungry, the world beautiful.

My eyes can't get enough of the trees--
they're so hopeful, so green.

A sunny road runs through the mulberries,
I'm at the window of the prison infirmary.

I can't smell the medicines--
carnations must be blooming nearby.

It's this way:
being captured is beside the point,
the point is not to surrender.

~by Nazim Hikmet

Ich will mit ihm gehen, den ich liebe

Ich will mit dem gehen, den ich liebe.
Ich will nicht ausrechnen, was es kostet.
Ich will nicht nachdenken, ob es gut ist.
Ich will nicht wissen, ob er mich liebt.
Ich will mit ihm gehen, den ich liebe.

by Bertolt Brecht

DESPITE

I loved you like the mountains love the sky
As in the happiness where wounds heal
As in the embrace of the mother of a found child after long missing…
I loved you like the warm bread and tea
Not because you were somebody else in my imagination,
But because you were all there was.
I loved you like no one on this earth should be loved,
Too soon,
Too much,
Too carelessly.
As you were a part of me like my eyes
I loved you with all my might, blood, veins and creases
And this wild missing, this farness unfillable…
I loved you knowing there was no loving back…

SILENCE

How distant the sun looks
Sinking with age over mountains
of September.

How late the fire-flies are
With summer's colloquy:

We remain silent beyond the shore
of wrecked knowledge.


~Cuneyt Ayral (from the book Siir Mezarliklari Gibi)
Translated by Feyyaz Kayacan (Fergar) 1979/London

NO SOLUTION

Wherever rain falls on the desert
My hair gets drenched all alone
Like those nights of utter quiet
Modern vehicles halt
And the tumult ends
Foreign violets bloom there
Water.

Mutable
In its monotony
Constant down the ages
Night transforms itself into morning
And beyond
Takes on a season's pectrum.

It perpetuates its secret with such ease
From chaos to eternity
Evolving-that is to say,
well-it's a bit obscure:
What sage could solve it for certain?

Yes which sage can solve it with precision
Sometimes a polyphonic melody
Sometimes a dot or a dash
"To be or not to be..."


~ Turkan Ildeniz ~

Translated by Talat Sait Halman (1982)

I BECAME A TREE

I was going under a tree
It happened in a flash
I fell apart from myself
And became a poppy flower
Bending in the sun,
Tortoise shell, house of wedding
Delirious talk, bevy of names.
I turned into the petal that drags
The wind like a blind God,
I became the century.
A tiny moment like a bug.
I was going under a tree
I became a tree
That propels itself
And saw someone stuck in the ground.

~Melih Cevdet Anday
Translated by Talat Sait Halman (Talisman, 1991(Spring 6))

LOVE AND A COMET

all the doctors I consulted
said the same thing
- as if they'd planned it:
"you've caught love, a disease
which isn't easy to bear at your age"

whereas I had thought
that I'd simply crashed
into a comet
when my heart brightened up
with a flash
in a blind-alley of life

(Translated by Tarık Günersel)

I Want To Go With The One I Love

I want to go with the one I love.
I do not want to calculate the cost.
I do not want to think about whether it's good.
I do not want to know whether he loves me.
I want to go with whom I love.

Bertolt Brecht

If You Forget Me (Pablo Neruda read by Madonna)

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