selected poems

                                                                                                                                                      Translated by Amy Mims

The death of the animal

Up till now I got along
As a race horse
Keeping myself in form
By the skin of my teeth
But I didn't always spend my time racing
May be no proper use was made of me
However I was well taken care of
The food was well chosen
Those who rode me
Were not particularly heavy
The other animals showed understanding
Sometimes envy
I wouldn't say love
Until the carriage came along
Then, a stable boy pulled me aside
Nailed horseshoes to my feet

Even this was not so painful
Until I saw father's silhouette
At that door
With ritualistic pity
Loading the pistol.

The refusal

You've just borne a moribund baby
And you won't admit it
Its book is open at the first page
Weight and eye color
Now the hemoglobin count is rising
As the relatives gather in the waiting-room
The doctor suggests a transfusion
You insist on wearing this raincoat
You refuse to take it off
You refuse to acknowledge the birth

It's impossible, you are saying
I never became yours.

                                                                                    ( from "The death of the animal" pd. Exandas, 1997 )

Erotiko

More inflexible than a statue
You are the guarantee of my loneliness
You seem to respect only madness
Like someone who considers reason a begger
You put into the palm of my hand
The coin of guilt
You have aborted the fetus passion
Escaping on yellow steps
You gave me these scissors
For the pages that were to come
Useless the pencil now
You are reshaping to some Unknown
And mirrors open to receive you
The relatives cover them with a white sheet
My teeth are knocking
Like the blind man's steps
The sky shudders with
The chill of lightning
Father is still working at that stable
There is the old man too
With holes instead of eyes
I feel him observing me in the moment
I kneel to kiss the dust

You insist on
Defending your sanctuary
For years now, standing in front of a Dream,
You never let me sit.

Performance

There came as I was sleeping
My first-born daughter
Dressed like a man
She spoke fiercely
You are right to be afraid

She was covered in leaves

- It is better to live the way you think
Otherwise you will always think
Of how you might have lived
The voices you have ignored
Demand their rights
The waves belong to those who drowned
But the end will come with
The sudden silence of the cicadas
- Remember
Behind the locked door
Love is undressing

With one sudden motion
She vanished
Swallowing a caterpillar

What you have not done
Is the death you carry inside
From far away a friend whispered

He was dressed as Helen
Bowing at the end
He threw away the mask
And showed himself a Man.

                                                                                                                 ( from  "The burial of the Ego" – 2005 )

Passage

                                                                             To the memory of Can Yücel

Ever more slowly the ship
Cuts this sea
Thick like gauze on the wound
The City all around us
Turns on the kilowatts for another Night
It's heart-rending how foreign pilots navigate us
So that we get out through these narrows

- Father, get off that bridge
Gray fog is enveloping everything
Come close to me
Better recall nice memories
Roumeli Hissar and Xastero
As well as Balioukli and Skouteri
And me in its flower gardens
On this bicycle that life gave me
Look at me
I am still keeping my balance
And getting it
- Do you remember
How they took our picture
They've been hiding their faces
since then
Under those black hoods

We had flowers in our hair
Wobbling now toward
The next 29th May on ... 3541

Only sea-gulls
Fly lower than my fears
Let's go below now
When we're crying
I don't want the Turk to see us.

                                                                                     ( At "World renaissance", upon the waves of Black Sea – Nov'1994 )