ADDRESS
if she
didn’t
come
it’s because we all
burned our addresses
when we blew up
at her one day
at gülay
Translated by Kemal Silay
THE LAST REHEARSAL OF DEATH
to kenan, to aytuğ
that woman / that man / the musician / eagle
the jew / the question mark
and us
1
love
•
the mad musician of life
•
love alone remained
2
would a life-span more quickly pass by constantly playing
dead
beginning to play the separation from the very moment on
would a love come to an end
•
would it start
would a mad musician eat his laterna
when he is hungry
•
open the old chests of life
open the albums of life—the jew went bankrupt
3
the groin of the night is blood
•
it is blood
•
charlatans all these notes are charlatans
bayonet alaturka—straight razor grotesque
is that why that man slashed his sorrow with a razor
the breeze which loosened its hair to the river
•
to the river—to that old voice of water
in the evening the coolness returning to the city
•
the easy conscience
the secret and dirt of
handing it over to the river
that woman loved herself the most
•
she sullied the rivers
•
her hands
•
her not being sober is because of that
•
you know it
those nights when she handed her flesh over to your urban
sorrow she was not sober
4
that mad musician eats his laterna too
the eagle eats his last child
what remains in the night is your blood-traces
the day is a flat dot you won't remember it for a while
the streets you tossed about violently will not forget you
the chest which you locked and left there will not forget
you
the blood waits, the blood waits as if not caring at all
death? it is not enough to get ready for your sorrow
life is not enough
•
the substance of life is trembling
love is no longer enough for that woman to make her flesh be
loved
5
the eagle ate itself
the day is no longer a musical note
the jew ate his old notebooks too—the mountain villagers who
became hungry
ate their icons
that woman loved herself
•
only she knew her dirt and secrets
that man wore out the hotel rooms of the city
•
quadrangle prostitutes
6
death? it has already become old
what does sorrow mean when you are alone
what does love mean without a witness
Translated by Kemal Silay
FAIR
this is this my greatest loneliness
my longing is revelry
•
my longing is a moth to your voice
my hands are about to drown in a single drop of rain
the city breathes in the same old way
your eyes are two fathomless wells
•
this is my greatest loneliness
i am falling into your eyes with rope-less buckets
Translated by Kemal Silay
FROM SQUARES OF THE THREAD
XVII
take away this dead body growing cold in my hands
clean up the plastic flowers from the shop windows
bring me a handful of sand
which does not want to become glass
XVIII
every night your voice is a never-ending elegy
every morning your face is an ever longer wedding ceremony
XIX
a leather briefcase in your hand
•
something left over from your years of government work
•
your other hand is empty
•
what is that thing stolen from the dissolute hours of the
night? they are your pockets
Translated by Kemal Silay
[From An Anthology of Turkish Literature, Edited by
Kemal Silay]
