EDIP CANSEVER
(1928 - 1986)

EYES
It seems nothing can provoke
Our inner silence
No sound no word nothing
The eyes bring out the eyes!

Nothing else but this unites us
A leaf touching another leaf
So close and so docile
The hands bring out the hands!

In our age love is an opposition
Let us unite to cast two single shadows...

Translated by Talat Sait Halman


THE BEDOUIN
Through the deserted dim brown city of my eyes
The white-necked camels pass, their tired drivers,
Day after day, as though to renew their grasp
Ceaselessly look at something very far.
Ask, do they see what they look at, even as a fairy tale,
In the deserted dim brown city of my eyes

Toward the unknown, not day, not death,
They merely look.
A Bedouin stands among the white thorns
The gods the suns the mirages
Not even a fire, not even a seedling, a prayer
In the deserted dim brown city of my eyes

Looking, perhaps, for water to slake a thirst.
No halting place fo rhim, no rest
He will not hear the white-necked camels
Though their tired drivers should sink in front of him
Like the coldest desert bird dying once more
Into the world's monotonous color

Translated by Nermin Menemencioglu

THE QUARREL

Pointed are his feet as he steps on hard stones
The women have breasts-Let's drink either whiskey or beer
And there are tables, you know, that are not living
Just like that, a table in them
Tell Mike and Jim-tonight to the women.

Mike does not like women, so we'll drop him at the coffeehouse
He will play cards a while, then sail to the oceans
And there are islands, you know, that are not living
Just like that, an island in them
You know us-he winks-to the women.

Pointed are his feet as the sky reflects on the roofs
This quarrel, a quarrel from its hundredth exponent
And there are people, you know, that are not living
Is it you Mike, or is it you Jim
Let's not care about it-he sighs-tonight to the women.

Translated by Dogan Turker


THE ROOSTER AND THE STAIRS
Upstairs is upstairs and downstairs is downstairs a bit
The rooster and stairs are right in the middle
Dazzling rooster! He gathers colors on the stairs
A kid is more a kid on the red of a whistle

A ten-fathom thread calls out my mother
I stick my head right into the bucket
As much fish as I think fish

Traslated by Talat Sait Halman and Brian Swann


THE GRAVITATIONAL CARNATION
Do you know you live in me bit by bit
Yet there is such a thing as being lovely with you
For instance we drink raki and it is
As if a carnation were engulfing us.
Beside us a tree works with precision
Mind and belly lose sense and sway.
You are bent on that carnation, I take it
And give it to you. You then pass it on
To someone else. And a greater beauty is reached.
Do you know, that someone else forwards it again
And lo the carnation quickens from hand to hand.
As you can see we augment this love
With warmth I dwell upon you, but that is not it
Look how like seven colors into white translated
Each into each silently we cast our unison.

Translated by Feyyaz Kayacan

THE DWARFS
The nights will not pass, they drag behind
Obstinately, ooze through the window panes
As for the dwarfs, they are singing in the kitchen
They are ripping their tongues with their forks
Their songs shudder with blood and nerves
I whip my face inside of me, my terrible face
And there I laugh at pain
I do not even laugh at pain
But like a many-armed sea-monster
I drive it mad with lust
The dwarfs are singing in the kitchen
Let us drink, O dwarfs, drink
We have plenty of time in any case
For pains yet to be born

Translated by Nermin Menemencioglu


CROSS-SECTION
With its roses, its gladioli and its pimps, the Flower Arcade
That uneasy fairway
Is where I hide
Tired as I leave the digging site
Dream fossils in my eyes
I would go past love if delirium did not threaten
If nothing threatened
Bleeding so as to savor death
The mouth of a female boy
Is nailed to a convex mirror
Blood, the root of all things, blood?

Translated by Nermin Menemencioglu

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