3 poems
Balcony Of The Tower
“I'm not afraid of the dead,” the man said,"Nothingness,
the locust leaping onto the flesh of the summer, sudden rain,
the red-ant circus in the shadow of a stone.
Absence of words makes me far more afraid.
So I write. Endlessly I write. I write the same way I build this tower
in the place of the old well. That damned well
into which my father fell and broke his neck.”
(It was winter. A train was passing across the lowlands like a snow-white gauze inside a sooty oil-lamp bottle. Soldiers brought to the front were hanging out of the wagon windows waving their helmets at the herd of wild horses racing alongside the train. Children chopping wood in the courtyard. A provisions lorry sunk into snow and boredom in the voice of the woman embracing the man on the balcony of the tower,
saying “You must go”.
I mean, the usual evens of winter).
The next day the man fell from the tower and broke his neck.
The woman repeatedly knocked on the tower door at the usual time,
a lantern in one hand, umbrella in the other
the manuscript of the man's poems which she could not keep dry
between her teeth.
Behind the wind fear was hiding, sniffing at the woman. Translated by Alexandra Buchler with Gökçenur Ç.
1.
Thirteen blackbirds rammed the night
the stars became jumbled
the night fluttered
2.
They perched on the arm of a yellow tower crane
The decks were cleared. The night-flagged ship
was loaded with the
thirteen blackbirds
It's said that
since that day
the captain has never set foot on dry land
and a small hurricane has followed the ship
at a cautious distance.
3.
I asked “to Tehran?”
“coming form there” one of them said“Rumelia?”
“we still have fifteen liras debt in the coffee shop there”
“Istanbul?”
“That where the the homeland is, there trees
grow saying the names of the thirten blacbirds aloud”
4.
Full moon in the well
Thirteen blackbirds circling over the well
their wings still
The winter will be long and trees will sleep lightly
5.
“Give me a new name” one of them said
If a blackbird gets used to its name, it cannot fly
“Give me a new name and I will tell you where
the past April is”
6.
They land on a harvested field
I made love on that field
when the wheat grew longer
than the nights
7.
A sparrow,
a finch, a crow,
a seagull, a siskin
We all had to make a choice
between stars and the wind
before we became blackbirds
8.
“Here is my wind” says a blackbird“my life, my works,
here are the seas of the world,
the blue of the seas,
we are like that, we are yours
These are our rains”
According to the blackbirds,
things that belong to nobody do not exist.
9.
There are some misunderstandings
between us and the blackbirds
just because the verb to die
does not exist
in their language except in future tense
I wander in the green fields
Grass reads my steps / footprints as a poem
10.
A blackbird said that
a mountain gets its power from its shadow
and your shadow under its own
Let's stop talking now
the wrong word may
make the time start again
11.
I come back home defeated
again from a war
my keys are on the table
Thirteen blackbirds perched in a row
on the window ledge
12.
Moon is an ice gong
blackbirds passed by
the briefest shadow-play
I buried one of them in a geranium pot
13.
I sat by the window
then took off from the ledge. Translated by Alexandra Buchler with Gökçenur Ç.
Incas salt
Ice Hairgrip is Melting
stick into her hair and makes a bun.
Lets make love now she says;
soon my hair will fall on my shoulder,
soon you will go.
Let this small icicle be the symbol
of the transiency.
Desire lies like a pier of salt
while snow flakes fall on the sea.
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