OKTAY RIFAT
(1914-1988)
BOYS
He died, he doesn't know that he is
dead.
His hands are at his sides, they'll carry
him away,
He cannot say: 'I will not go'.
He couldn't taste the sweets and cakes,
He couldn't even thank the friends
Who carried off his coffin.
Ah, his death is not like someone else's!
Translated by Bernard Lewis
THANKSGIVING
I must give thanks
To my boots and my coat.
I must give thanks to the falling snow
To today, to this joy...
Thanks for having trodden the snow
Thanks to the sky and the earth
To the stars whose names I don't know-
Praise be to water and fire!
Translated by Bernard Lewis
SELF REVELATION
How hard is my ordeal!
I know no arithmetic
And I am employed in accounts.
My favorite dish is eggplant fried in oil
And it upsets me.
I know a freckled girl
I love her she doesn't love me.
Translated by Bernard Lewis
TO MY WIFE
Halls which are cool with you
Rooms which are light with you
A morning waking in your bed
To a day long with happiness.
We are halves of the same apple
Our day and night, our homes, are one.
The grass grows gladly where you step
Loneliness comes from the road where you've gone.
Translated by Larry Clark
PINK HOUSE ON THE BOSPHORUS
There are girls crisp as lettuce,
Their mouths and noses curved and curled,
They sit cross-legged on the ferries,
The wind blows, and when he looks
A man has glimpses which make his heart pound.
Oh Istanbul, old devil that you are!-
Down at Findikli there's fun and games.
A line in my hand with a hundred hooks
I plunge like the North with among the tunny
From Captain Turgut's boat.
I've never been to visit Orhan's grave
At Rumelihisar-
-I never want to go.
Now with fresh bread, a morsel of white cheese,
He'd be just here, who knows!
Drinking raki and watching the sea.
I leap from the quay to the water,
Fish below me
Clouds above,
The choppy Bosphorus laps by mouth;
And I swim straight to the pink house on the water's
edge.
Translated by Richard McKane
THE FISHERMAN AND THE SEA
Yesterday the sea was silient,
today it's muttering.
tomorrow it could be raving and foaming,
but the fisherman who lives on his own
occasionally looks into space
and never talks for days on end.
Translated by Richard McKane