TURGAY FİŞEKÇİ

TENTS 
We are equal when drinking water 
We are equal in needing bread
Bread ond water
The irreplaceables for man 

The teacher in whose classes 
One is tested by fire
Love 
The irreelaceable for man

It is there when we are 
Not there when we are not 
Virtue
The irreploceoble for mon

The most desired 
The most distant dream
Peace
The irreplaceoble for mon

It leaves with one action 
With another action it perishes
Earth
The irreplaceable for mon

Translated by Dilek Yazici


CONFESSlONS ON A BlRTHDAY
They spill out of the whites of your eyes into the streets 
Children going to work each morning 
They slide down joyously from the curls of your hair 
Their cries mix in the boulevards of the town
lnto the rustling of the leaves poisoned by exhaust gases

You wait under those leaves 
In your hair children's mouths, melons, and cherries 
The best coincidence life can offer me. 
--My life is a skein of wool 
  And each of my legs a knitting needle 
  Making a stitch at each step--

When I come up to you I come closer to the 
World Their best notes are distilled 
When I touch the keys of your eyelashes, The art I find in your face 
--My oldest friend-
Like someone I have never met before

Constantly surprises me 
The food gets more delicious 
If the light shining in your face is reflected on it 
Children play in the whites of your eyes 
Like cats purring and purring 
Rock rock is the sound a child makes seeing love for the first time
It descends upon his bed in the evening.

Rains wash down the whole night 
Your eyes the largest square of the town 
In the morning it is the fog in your face 
That ties my boat to your bed 
The traffic gets jammed in the streets 
While my lips cannot part with the curve in your arm.

This is how so many years have passed, maybe more will
Getting used to a person. like one would to tea, music, and a film 
For a feeling to make room for itself between two individuals.

It is a nest set up in the void 
With sticks and branches carried into it 
From turkeys stuffed with chestnuts at the New Years'
And from vigilant hospital rooms 
From seasides, from books 
In which the egg of life is tended. 
Inside one like a fussy mother 
The wish to sweep it away thinking it is a heap of dust.

This is how so many years have passed, maybe more will 
With whatever we carried into that nest built in the void 
Our sufferings and longings 
Our past and future.

Translated by Yurdanur Salman 

ANA SAYFAYA - BACK