Kavaklar – Poplar Trees (Öndeyiş – Prologue)

My flesh is freezing cold, my heart in aches.
Oh the poplar trees, the poplar trees…

With coarse scissors,
They carved me out of an old photograph.

Half of my cheek remained there,
Piecing itself together with the emptiness.

A cut hand on my shoulders,
bleeding for ever and ever.

Oh the poplar trees, the poplar trees…
Pain is chasing me, whistling all through the way.

Translated by Rukiye Uçar (Metin Altıok, Öndeyiş – Kavaklar)

Türkçe’si:

Bedenim üşür, yüreğim sızlar.
Ah kavaklar, kavaklar…
Beni hoyrat bir makasla
Eski bir fotoğraftan oydular.
Orda kaldı yanağımın yarısı,
Kendini boşlukla tamamlar.
Omzumda bir kesik el,
Ki durmadan kanar.
Ah kavaklar, kavaklar…
Acı düştü peşime ardımdan ıslık çalar.

-Metin Altıok…

Yesterday towards morning

ÖZDEMİR ASAF, Turkish poet (1923-1981)

I talked to myself towards morning, yesterday

I was a hill always leading up to myself

There was an enemy up on the hill

I went to shoot him down; then ended up fighting myself.

-Özdemir Asaf (Dün Sabaha Karşı), Translated by Rukiye Uçar…

Olvido

Olvido
These evenings are always vulgar.
Once the day is gone with its splendor
Filling up everywhere with our loneliness
In a scream of colours from our garden,
A hand starts to take out from our pack
The sorrows that have the smell of lavender;
These evenings are always vulgar.

Regrets, attacking in waves,
Force that bronze door of oblivion
And the soul, full of holes with the arrows shot;
Here, all of a sudden, you are in the old house you were born in 
The lamp and the stairs are waiting for you,
The cradle is creaking with silenced lullabies
And all the lost, defeated, crestfallen...

It is with the beauty of unspoken love
The poems left incomplete on papers;
One, towards a morning that has the smell of rain
Remembers one day that he opened a window,
A cloud holding still, a bird flying,
A stone that he knelt down and ate cheese and bread on...
All of these are with the beauty of love.

Love must have flown away with summer
Like girls dancing the halay holding arm in arm.
How about you? The skirts of the past times
Drifting away like the moonlight
From the hidden gardens with old trees;
Skirts that swing with whispers, coyness
Leaving the weary men into the night.

Waiting for the return of the eternal lover
The flowers, the witnesses of false oaths 
In springs that will no longer be there.  
Oh, deception, the most beautiful song of life!
Be deceived, though the hopeless winter has arrived;
All lonely footsteps are covered with snow
The flowers, sprinkled by the lover who hasn't returned.   

And you! oh you! Among the blowing branches 
Twinkling like a sparkle
What do you ask of me in this evening hour? 
The woman with no smiles ever seen,
How immortal you are in the mirror of love; 
In this time of waking up of memories
It is  always you, you, among the blowing branches.

Oh oblivion! close your window now,
The sea already dragged me into its depth; 
That world will no longer come out of water. 
A smoke seems to be rising from sorrows
From those things whose adventure is already over. 
Spread all over me with your deadly night
Oh oblivion! Save me from all these griefs.  

Translated by Rukiye Uçar (Ahmet Muhip Dıranas, Olvido)

Walt Whitman

A glimpse through an interstice caught,

Of a crowd of workmen and drivers in a bar-room around the stove late of a winter night, and I unremark’d seated in a corner,

Of a youth who loves me and whom I love, silently approaching and seating himself near, that he may hold me by the hand,

A long while amid the noises of coming and going, of drinking and oath and smutty jest,

There we two, content, happy in being together, speaking little, perhaps not a word.

-Walt Whitman…

Translation into Turkish:

Küçük bir aralıktan anlık bir bakışla görünen,

Bir kış gecesi geç bir vakitte bir barda soba etrafında işçi ve şoför kalabalığı

ve bir köşede farkedilmeyen ben,

Beni seven ve benim de sevdiğim bir genç, sessizce yaklaşıp yanıma oturuyor, elimi tutacak gibi,

Girip çıkanların gürültüsü içinde uzun bir süre, içkiler, yeminler ve açık saçık şakalar,

İşte orada ikimiz, birlikte olmaktan memnun ve mutlu, azıcık konuşarak, belki de hiç konuşmadan öylece duruyoruz.

Translated by R. U.

Youth is such a thing

-Youth is such a thing-

I quiver deep inside with a voice every day,

Every time the clock chimes, repeatedly:

“What have you done of your field, where is the harvest?

Will you proceed into the night with nothing in your hands?

Just think! You are halfway through your life.

Youth is such a thing that comes and goes;

And after that you are left out on a limb;

You run from one window to another.”

 

Oh those days I could not know the value of,

The bunch of roses I threw away without smelling,

The fountain whose water I wasted,

The blowing wind I could not set sail against!

Yet, the waters tend to flow to the west,

The sound of the nightingale on the tree has changed

Shadows are settling on my window;

Your time is coming, oh memories.

(Cahit Sıtkı Tarancı, Gençlik Böyledir İşte, Varlık, July 1, 1937)

-Translated by Rukiye Uçar…

 

 

 

“Till Morning” by Özdemir Asaf

Özdemir Asaf (1923-1981)

Till Morning 

The world is so big; 
I am a dot in the middle of it, no matter what I do. 
Yet at times the world becomes so small, 
I feel it will fall over if I move.

Life is so long,  
It feels like never ending for a moment... 
Then it becomes so short before I know it; 
What, I say, could come out of a life. 

Felicity is so vital to the living; 
One, I swear, would die for it. 
Besides, it is so pointless to be joyful 
After those that died without living a happy moment.

I am so important a person, 
So good with my mind and thoughts. 
So wicked I am 
with my mad intentions. 

O night; you are so dark and silent... 
You are falling on the houses, seas in such a way. 
Yet at the same time, you are so bright and loud; 
You are so madly exciting us.

O morning; you are coming like a new world; 
So adorned, so plain 
You are so beautiful, o morning, 
So beautiful.

-Translated by Rukiye Uçar...

The original version in Turkish: 

Sabaha Kadar

Dünya o kadar büyük ki; Bir noktayım ortasında, ne yapsam.
Bazan da o kadar küçülüyor ki dünya,
Devrilecek sanıyorum, kımıldarsam.

Hayat o kadar uzun ki,
Öyle bitmez geliyor ki bir an..
Bir de bakıyorum, o kadar kısalıyor ki;
Ne çıkar, diyorum, bir hayattan.

Saadet o kadar lazım ki yaşayana;
Billahi can verir uğrunda insan.
Hem o kadar boş ki mesud olmak,
Gün yüzü görmeden ölenlerin arkasından.

Ben o kadar önemli kişiyim ki,
O kadar iyiyim ki aklım ve düşüncelerimle.
O kadar fenayım ki ben
Delice niyetlerimle.

Gece; ne kadar karanlık ve sessizsin..
Öyle kaplıyorsun ki evleri, denizleri.
Hem o kadar aydınlık ve seslisin ki;
Çılgınca coşturuyorsun bizleri.

Sabah; bir yeni dünya gibi geliyorsun;
Öylesine süslü, öylesine sadesin ki..
Sen o kadar güzelsin ki sabah,
O kadar güzelsin ki.

-Özdemir Asaf...

Blood Sounds On My Handkerchief (Edip Cansever, 1928 – 1986)

You can make it to anywhere

It is never late for anything, yet

My child, forgive me

Brother Ahmet, you forgive me, too

If I look so destitute,

Not because I feel like it,

Not a bit

Oh dear brother Ahmet

Man resembles the place he lives in

Resembles its water, its soil

The fish swimming in its sea

The flower pushing its soil

The foggy slope of its mountains and hills

Konya’s white and

Antep’s red plains

He resembles its sky in that his tears are blue

The sea in that his glances are rough

Houses, streets and corners

How much he resembles

And the dooryards

(His heart squeezed with a well curb)

And its words

(In a word, a trade over a pocket mirror, maybe)

And resembles someone’s asking for directions one day

His looking upset while asking and asking

A glass-maker’s cutting glass, and a carpenter’s holding a plane

Lighting a cigarette, opening a crown cap bottle

Mini-buses, shanty houses

Resembles its longings, its lies

His memory is unemployment,

And his sorrow is his consciousness

His blade is his tears, about to dry

You can’t laugh, a laughter

Is a laughter only if a nation is laughing

How much we resemble Turkey, brother Ahmet

You would hold the glass so gently in the old days

Your elbow leaning against a stool

– ‘leaning against the sky’ I would once say-

Images on cigarette packs

Images: prisons

Images: longings

Images: from of old

And one of your eyebrows raised

Your love in haste

Your friendship quick

I see now that

The glass is like a swear word in your hand

And what is it that we call time, anyway, brother Ahmet

We would once visit train stations one by one

Back then the stations would smell of Malatya

Would smell of Nazilli

As Edirne mail train was soaking

Under Istanbul rain as thin as hair

You would feel like falling in love with a brunette woman

The woman’s fine calico skin

Very long neck

Eyelashes

And to you brother Ahmet

She would cut tomatoes and cheese from a distance,

Would set your table

She would put her hands onto what flows through your heart as if putting them into water

She would bring you cigarettes when you were in prison

Would give birth to children

Would crochet like lace the hands of those children who will clean up the world

Those children will grow up

Those children will grow up

Those children…

Don’t pretend not to know brother Ahmet

Incite hope

Soothe hopelessness

All I want to say is

The trains would resemble something dying out

But they are so functional now that

We almost live without dreams

Children, women, men

Trains are jampacked

Trains, like the trains heading for the frontlines

Workers

Workers going to Germany

Women

Some are passengers, some waiting for those living far away from home

Suitcases, string bags in their hands

Cologne, water bottles, packages

and they, all of them

growing towards wrong places like a captive tree

Oh brother Ahmet

Do you see

The stations now resemble marketplaces scattered around

And the country resembles marketplaces scattered around

I don’t even feel like feeling sad

Even though I feel sad

Not that constantly

Sadness passes by like a jazz song

That quick

That short

And that’s all

Brother Ahmet, my dear, why would a handkerchief bleed?

Not a tooth, not a nail, why would a handkerchief bleed?

Blood sounds on my handkerchief

-Translated by Rukiye Uçar (Mendilimde Kan Sesleri by Edip Cansever)

LIES

I am the poet of beautiful days

get my inspiration from happiness

talk to the girls about their dowries

About amnesty to the prisoners

I give good news to children

To children whose fathers are in the front lines

But it is so hard

So hard to tell lies

(Yalan by Melih Cevdet Anday, translated by Rukiye Uçar)

Everyone’s Night

Hold yourself, don’t show it brother,

I shall not see your tears mother,

Why are you lost in thought beautiful typewriter?

Leave me alone little vendor,

What could I even do for you?

My sorrows are too many to tell!

 

There is so much darkness around

Everyone’s night is enough for themselves.

-Translated by R.U.

Tut kendini, belli etme kardeşim, 
Görmeyeyim gözyaşını valide, 
Ne dalarsın öyle güzel daktilo, 
Beni rahat bırak küçük satıcı, 
Ne gelir ki elimden sizin için? 
Benim de dertlerim bitmez söylesem! 

O kadar çok ki etrafta karanlık. 
Herkesin gecesi kendine yeter.
-Cahit Sıtkı Tarancı...

In Memory of Nazım Hikmet Ran II

How beautiful it is to remember you:

among death knells and news of victory,

in prison

and over the age of forty…

How beautiful it is to remember you:

your hand, forgotten on a piece of blue fabric

and in your hair

the graceful softness of my beloved Istanbul soil…

Like a second human inside me

the happiness of loving you…

the smell of the geranium leaf left on your finger tips

A sunny comfort

and the call of flesh:

divided by crimson lines

a warm, dense darkness…

How beautiful it is to remember you,

To write about you,

To lie back in prison thinking about you;

Words you uttered on a certain day and a certain place,

Not themselves

but the world in those words…

How beautiful it is to remember you:

I should carve something wooden for you again

a drawer

a ring,

and I should weave fine silk about three meters long

and right away

jumping from my place

Grabbing the bars tight on my window

To the milk white blueness of liberty

I should read out loud what I have written for you

How beautiful it is to remember you:

among death knells and news of victory,

in prison

and over the age of forty…

Translated by R. U. (-Nazım Hikmet, Ne Güzel Şey Hatırlamak Seni)