ULKU TAMER
 

THE DUEL
If I am  defeated,  I  am  defeated,  what  does it  matter?
Duelling you will strengthen my character.
Here I am standing in this valley up to my ankles
The flat rocks of this ground are under the soles of my feet,
The shrieks of the eagles traversing the sun s rails
With a grating noise blend into my forehead.
If your bullets hit my chest  like the leaves of a plant
I have long forgotten about, what does it matter?

I know nothing about marksmanship, I' ve never used a revolver;
But once I face you, both dropping the cock
And failing to shoot you will harden my heart,
If I die I shall make an attractive corpse,
In a split second, hedgehogs will make their nests in my hair,
The snow will endeavor to shroud the rainbow
And the journalist of the dignified poverty-stricken bugs
Will  take  snapshots  of  me  smiling.
 

HISTORY OF THE VANQUISHED
Your mouth narrates to me the history of the vanquished
From Bucharest and Medinah
with stories it has carried from a pillow of darkness.

Through your nasal passages
Roam the little leopards of the centuries before Christ
and of the circuses of today.

Tired soldiers stack their rifles among us, in whispers.
On a mountain your head dips into the well
and your hair is dried in the balcony of the steppes.

Your face awaits the treaties
That will be signed overseas.

Turned toward history, your face waits and is awaited
by a rider wearing a shattering armor
who approaches you incessantly, inexorably,

by a rider whose shield
is going  to pieces,

by that rider whose lance
is stuck in ashes

your face is expected in all the wars.
 

I OFFER YOU MY THANKS
It  is I who thank you,  it  was you who kissed me
You were the one who kissed me on my forehead as I slept
You made the groves nice and cool, my sparrows came alive;
You were a blue fox riding a blue horse,
Perhaps I had died yesterday or last week perhaps.

You were so lovely to me, so were those feet of yours.
 

Translated by Talat Sait Halman
 
 

ANA SAYFAYA - BACK