Salty Water in My Canteen

SALTY WATER IN MY CANTEEN West Indies, Red Apple, Ithaca, South China! I am sentenced to a long journey. I have no share in the territories of whites. I have committed a crime against the land of the locals. A mischief among despots, an outsider among tribes, being a savage cuts me off from the languid fruits. For myself in this world, I chose the bitter taste of a root. There is no shade nearby to rest. I am sentenced to a long journey. What is far? For a man like me, who lives far from his own self— how far could the destination be? My head is uncovered, my hair parted at the middle. Whatever country I pass through, the tattoos on my temples will betray me. They will call me brave and honorable, but I am silent and sad. The cascading yell I learned from the pirates no longer does me any good. I am disgusted by the confident, settled dialects of peasants. Around my neck, jewelry made from the embarrassments of those who declared me guilty. On my back, the deaf scale of clandestine words. I have added salt to the water in my canteen; I carry no food. I am sentenced to a long journey. I am leaving a life—a life tailored for me. Those who saw me used to say, “It looks good on you.” The pocket mirror I bought during my military service, certain nights I went out, the frivolous smile on my face when I wore my knuckleduster, and other such indulgences—all left behind. The order is given by the judges. I have signed the document that allows me to carry no smell, no echo, no color. My work here is finished. I no longer have a home. I am sentenced to a long journey. İsmet Özel / Translated from Turkish by Ali Rıza Arıcan, April 1st 2013

A SPACIOUS COURTYARD / AVLU GENİŞLİĞİ

     A SPACIOUS COURTYARD

You own houses, large.

The world, boring, you undress on the thresholds.

Your child didn’t stay locked in the rooms, even for one day.

No one entered your house without your permission.

Night is still that fairy tale for you to sleep on.

None of the meetings you joined is counted as crime

You never objected anyone for someone else.

Uniform is your last word, as it is your inner clothes.

Labour is called labour only if is it yours. 

You never forced to keep silent by your own despair.

There is no one you had to turn your back to.

Your country was geographical information, boring as hell.

If our first virtue was not to see, the second one was to forget.

You never entered into the back streets.

Your mother knows neither the police stations nor the prisons.

You never started kissing a woman from her heels.

Evening is a down feeling, the one you won't be able to solve.

Nobody’s loneliness fell on to your threshold.

The biggest language was the one you speak.

You never made your father disappointed.

You were not laughing, abhorring others were your wedding*

Cranes never flied in your voice with their wings

We were the ones embarrassed of your distances.

The people were a black stain, spatters to your clothes in every step.

Youth is the growing danger while you get older.

Numbers, numbers were your biggest readings.

Your happiness is so lonely that it never becomes three people.

You never looked into a gun barrel

It is always a feast when you return from the city.

There is no one shot in your family photographs.

We were majority but the one heard was your voice.

And we expected only a spacious courtyard from you…

To you, who, what, how—

Did we have our sorrows in the same language?

Is this the same century in which we live now?

Şükrü Erbaş, Üç nokta beş harf/ Yalnızlık heceleri
Everest Yayınları, Eylül 2004

Translated to English by Ali Riza Arican – 10 May 2012

* I am not sure if I understood this line correctly. The translation is direct, not trying to catch the meaning. 

Avlu Genişliği

Sizin evleriniz var, büyük.
Sıkıntı diye soyunduğunuz dünya, eşiklerde.
Çocuğunuz odalarda bir gün kapalı kalmadı.
Habersiz girmedi kapınızdan kimse.
o masal hâlâ uyumanız için.
Gittiğiniz hiçbir toplantı suç sayılmadı.
Başkası için itiraz etmediniz kimseye.

Üniforma son sözünüz, içinizden giydiğiniz.
Emekten, yalnız kendinizi anladınız.
Susup kaldığınız olmadı hiç.
Arkanızı döndüğünüz, yoktu.
Bir coğrafya bilgisiydi ülkeniz, sıkıcı mı sıkıcı.
Birinci erdeminiz görmemekse, ikincisi unutmaktı.
Ara sokaklara gitmediniz hiç.
Anneniz ne karakol, ne hapishane bilir.
Bir kadını topuklarından öpmediniz bir kez.

Akşam kötü bir duygu, bir türlü çözemediğiniz.
Kimsenin yalnızlığı düşmedi eşiğinize.
En büyük dil sizin konuştuğunuzdu.
Babanızı bir gün üzmediniz.
Gülmüyordunuz, küçümseme düğün ediyordu.
Turnalar uçmadı sesinizde bir kanat.
Utanan biz olduk uzaklığınızdan.

Bir kara leke halk, her adımda üstünüze sıçrayan.
Gençlik, büyüyen tehlike siz yaşlandıkça.
Sayılar ve sayılardı en büyük okumanız.
Sevinciniz öyle tenha ki üç kişi olamıyor.
Bir namludan içeriye bakmadınız hiç.
Hep bir şenlikti çarşılardan dönüşünüz.

Vurulmuş kimse yok aile fotoğrafınızda.
Biz çoktuk ama çıkan sizin sesinizdi.
Ve biz sizden bir avlu genişliği bekledik...

Size kim, neyi, nasıl
Aynı dilde mi kederlendik sahi
Aynı yüzyıl mıydı şu yaşadığımız... 

Şükrü Erbaş

What if I burn your friends?

Your friends,

Your sister, your brother

What would you feel if I burn them,

Mr honorable arsonist?

Then if I say “Let it be for the best!”*

“I know the one who lit the fire, he is a good boy”

What if I turn their lawyers

into deputies one by one?

What would you say Mr “justice!” distributor?

And then if I say “We burned them but ask once why”

And then if I say “We will all go to heaven.|

And then if I say “We burned the infidels,

All the nymphs of the paradise remained to us”

Did they really?

Then if I jail those

Whose ideas are opposite to mines

If I erect a new country

A country in which being in prison is the proof of being intellectual

What would you say, Mr chief guard?

And then if I call the writers as “terrorists”

Rectors, professors and chief commander too...

Then call those who are put in jail without proper questionings

“the rapists, the thieves, the robbers”

Whom shall we call “head of terrorists” in this case?

Then if I say “I burned but there is no oganization behind it”

Then if I say “molotov cocktail should be considered as bomb too”

Then If I say “writing book is a crime”

But it is not a crime to burn neither books nor humans

What would you say Mr Head Arsonist

Then if I become proud of myself with

“One day I had recited a poem

I was imprisoned because of that”

Then if I sue those animal-loving cartoonists

Sometimes one by one, sometimes all together

How great are you, dear “progressive democracy”!

You know how to kill

You know how to say “One minute” too

You know how to bomb

While apologizing for Dersim** at the same time.

Sue this poem too

Even though yours is dead

Mine is still alive

The conscience for humanity

Surely they will find you

The souls of those whom you burned, you let burn

And if you think you will go to heaven

You are wrong

What do all religions, what do all gods

Say to us?

“No one can take the life that I gave but me.”

Indispensable part of the hell

The comrades of apollyons

Those who burned the men or did nothing to stop it

will be burned too, indefinitely in the hell

Because God is fair when treating all men.

Written by Ulaş Başar Gezgin / 14 Mart 2012

Translated to English by Ali Riza Arican / 14 March 2012

His poems with his own voice: http://soundcloud.com/ulas-basar-gezgin

Original Version of the Poem (Turkish): http://gezginulas.blogspot.com/2012/03/senin-arkadaslarn-yaksam.html

Sivas Katliamına dair Can Dündar'ın yaptığı kısa bir belgesel.

THERE IS NO HAPPY LOVE

Man never truly possesses anything
Not his strength, not his weakness, not his heart
When he opens his arms
His shadow forms a cross
When he tries to embrace happiness
He crushes it
His life is a strange and painful separation

There is no happy love

His life resembles those soulless soldiers
Who have been groomed for a different fate
Why should they rise in the morning
When nighttime finds them disarmed, uncertain
Say these words and hold back your tears

There is no happy love

My beautiful love, my dear love, my torn heart
I carry you in me like a wounded bird
Those who unknowingly watch us walk by
Repeat after me my words and sigh
They have already died in your bright eyes

There is no happy love

By the time we learn to live
It´s already too late
Our hearts cry in unison at night
It takes many regrets to pay for a thrill
Many a misfortune for the simplest song
Many a tear for a guitar´s melody

There is no happy love

There is no love which is not pain
There is no love which does not die
There is no love which does not fade
And none that is greater than your love for your country
There is no love which does not live from tears

There is no happy love
But it is our own love

LOUIS ARAGON

Mutlu Aşk Yoktur Ki Dünyada

Aslında hiçbir şey kâr değil insana
Ne gücü ne zayıf yanları ne de yüreği
Gölgesi bir haç gölgesidir kollarını açsa
Ve kırar göğsüne bastırırken sevdiği şeyi
Tuhaf bir ayrılıktır hayatı kapkara
Mutlu aşk yok ki dünyada

Hani giydirilmiş erler bir başka yazgıya
İşte o silahsız erlere benzer hayatı
Sabahları o yazgı için uyanmış olsalar da
Tükenmiştirler ve kararsızdırlar akşamları
Söyle yavrum şu sözleri sakın ağlama
Mutlu aşk yok ki dünyada

Güzel aşkım tatlı aşkım çıbanım derdim
Yaralı bir kuş gibi taşırım seni şuramda
Ve görmeden bakanlar şu halimize bizim
Süzdüğüm sözleri söylerler benden sonra
Ve her şey der demez ölür iri gözlerin uğruna
Mutlu aşk yok ki dünyada

Yaşamayı öğrenmek bizimçin geçti çoktan
Ağlasın gece içinde kalplerimiz yan yana
En küçük şarkıyı mutsuzluktur kurtaran
Her ürperiş borçlu baştan bir hayıflanmaya
Ve her kitar havası beslenir bir hıçkırıkla
Mutlu aşk yok ki dünyada

Acılara batmamış bir aşk söyle bana
Yıkmamış kıymamış olsun bir aşk söyle
Bir aşk söyle sarartıp soldurmamış ama
İnan ki senden artık değil yurt sevgisi de
Bir aşk yok ki paydos demiş göz yaşlarına
Mutlu aşk yok ki dünyada
Ama şu aşk ikimizin öyle de olsa.

LOUIS ARAGON

Çeviren: Cemal Süreya

GUADANYA - XIX

Now, I can understand you are the sister of Rimbaud
Now, I can understand that many destroyed gardens should be considered yours
At the train stations, in the empty boats, we will spend the frost of the night.
We are going to spend it, aren’t we?..

Don’t touch the kettle, the tea is being steeped.
Beyond your eyes, all become sooty
In your blood, one thousand one types of earthly substance
We are going to get warmer, aren’t we?..

No, we do not belong to another world…
But we came from another world, that is right…
Many thinkers call it the third world
We are going to keep quiet, aren’t we?..

We didn’t ask for “one official ticket to the world” at the station.
We didn’t say “let’s get off here and get on another train.”
Your arms are long, same as they were yesterday
We are going to be the one, aren’t we?..

One, unity of the universe, everything is in one
One, you are the master of that world
You didn’t treat me bad under your rule
We are going to continue the same, aren’t we?..

I accumulated your voice in the cells, full of moss
I inscribed your name on the gates of the sand castles
They were melting, as we are in the first world, melting
We are going to return, aren’t we?..

Aey the girl, the one lost in that ocean
You will win with our silent tears
While scattering all our passion to the soil
We are going to be lighter, aren’t we?..

Aey pashas, effendis and the masters of the world
Do not destroy our garden
We call it a rose garden but it has thorns too
We are going to fight till the end, aren’t we?..

We are the poets of boondocks, let’s admit this before everything
These expensive pens do not fit into our hands, we should sing
to the bugs and grasses all together
Let the sky open up, let the rain become complete
We are going to sing it, aren’t we?..

Stones have soul, sky has soul too
When we hear, what they hide, what they disclose
The entire universe will become a scene of craziness
We are going to play, aren’t we?..

When will you get on the boat…
After leaving that ancient boat at the pier
Then we will sail through the infinity of the horizon
We are going to look at the future only, aren’t we?..

But you are crying, I am crying
Tell me, which disaster that we have seen earlier than it happened
No, this is possible, you are wrong, this is possible
We are going to be comrades, aren’t we?..

Let’s become a tamada* before everything
In an evening of Tbilisi, in a house
Let’s have some guests, a few of them are poets
We are going to serve raki** too, aren’t we?..

You are crying again, string of my heart, don’t cry
We did not come to this world more than once but
We can still die more than once in this world
We are going to die too, aren’t we?

And this poem, in the Yellow River… I say this poem, in the Oka River,
In the Caspian Sea, it will sink and resurrect, after we disappear
What will it tell to the Turkmen boatman
We are going to be completely silenced, aren’t we?..

Written by Ulaş Başar Gezgin
Translated to English by Ali Riza Arican / 30 08 2011

* the toastmaster at a Georgian Supra (feast) or at a Russian wedding
** Turkish alcoholic beverage



GUADANYA - XIX

Rimbaud’nun bacısısın anladım
Anladım senin sayılır nice tarumar bahçe
Tren garlarında, boş kayıklarda geçireceğiz ayazını gecenin
Geçireceğiz öyle değil mi?..

Dokunma çaydanlığa, demleniyor
İs oluyor ötesi gözlerinin
Kanında binbir türlü dünyevi madde
Isınacağız öyle değil mi?..

Hayır, bir başka dünyaya ait değiliz…
Ama bir başka dünyadan geldik, o doğru…
Üçüncü dünya dediler buna nice düşünürler
Ses etmeyeceğiz öyle değil mi?..

‘Bir tane –numaralı- dünya bileti’ demedik istasyonda
Demedik biz ‘burada inelim, başka trene binelim’
Kolların dünkü gibi öyle uzunca,
Bir olacağız öyle değil mi?..

Birdir, vahdet-i vücud, herşey birdedir
Birdir, sensin o dünyanın hakimi
Kem davranmadın bana hükmün altında
Böyle sürdüreceğiz öyle değil mi?...

Sesini biriktirdim yosunlu hücrelerde
İsmini işledim duvarlarına kumdan kalelerin
Eriyorlardı, birinci dünyadayız ya, eriyorlardı
Geri döneceğiz öyle değil mi?..

Ol bahirde kaybettiğini ey nisa!
Suskun gözyaşlarımız kazandıracak sana
Nice tutkularımızı savurarak toprağa şöyle bir
Hafifleşeceğiz öyle değil mi?..

Behey paşalar, efendiler, kainatın hakimleri
Tarumar etmeyin bahçemizi
Gül bahçesi dediysek dikeni de var
Teslim olmayacağız öyle değil mi?

Taşra şairiyiz ikimiz de, kabul edelim bunu herşeyden önce
Yakışmıyor elimize divit kalem, türkü söylemeli börtüye böceğe hep bir ağızdan
Gök açılsın, yağmur tamam olsun diye
Söyleyeceğiz öyle değil mi?..

Taşın ruhu vardır, göğün ruhu var
Duyduğumuzda, ne gizler, neler söylerler
Çılgınlık sahnesi olacak evren
Oynayacağız öyle değil mi?..

Şu sandala ne zaman bineceksin…
Bırakıp o sal’ı kadim rıhtımda
Ki ufkun enginlerine açılacağız
Geriye bakmayacağız öyle değil mi?..

Ama sen ağlıyorsun, ağlıyorum ben
De, hangi felaketi önceden gördük
Hayır, bu mümkün, yanılıyorsun, bu mümkün!
Yol’daş olacağız öyle değil mi?..

Tamada olalım herşeyden önce
Tiflis’te bir evde bir akşam vakti
Konuklarımız olsun, bir kısmı şair
Rakı da koyacağız öyle değil mi?..

Ağlıyorsun yine, bam teli yüreğimin, ağlama
Bu dünyaya birden fazla gelmedik amma
Bu dünyada birden fazla ölmek var
Biz de öleceğiz öyle değil mi?..

Ve bu şiir, Sarıırmak’ta… Bu şiir diyorum, Oka Nehri’nde,
Hazar Denizi’nde batıp çıkarak, biz yokolduktan sonra
Neler anlatacak Türkmen kayıkçıya…
Tümden susacağız öyle değil mi?..

ULAŞ BAŞAR GEZGİN

Moon is Dark

Moon is Dark

To blue

To blue, your eyes incline

To the blue of fire

A rebel in the wind

If I am blind

If I don’t exist except I do for you

If I am broken

Life is mine, dream is mine

None of their business!

Come on, come now,

Moon is dark

Hungrier than the dog

More naked than the snake

Stuck and troubled

If I came to your door

If I am still not satisfied

And, and, and

My loves

Like my loves

Judges sitting there

Writing the final verdict of punishment

Please come now

Moon is dark

I am surrounded by bastards

With their friendly faces

With their friendly smiles

They burn with my cigarettes

They kiss my forehead

Silent, traitor, like a centipede

I am surrounded by bastards

I try, try but cannot get rid of them

Ohh my night, death seems mightier

Don’t hesitate, come now

Moon is dark…

Ahmet Arif

Translated by A. A.

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