Attila Ilhan, Poems Translated Into English, Oct 2007

ATTILA ILHAN (1925-2005) POEMS

Translated into English by Nilűfer Mizanoğlu Reddy

ANCIENT MARINE FOLK we were fifteen over the coffin of the dead man heave ho a bottle of rum satan and drink made us sink heave ho a bottle of rum

over there a strange pebble chants sea shepherds have driven their flocks into the open sea mussels’ eyes have harlot’s blue pupils in the boundless west green galleons of time were sighted unforgettable and green drenched in blood in glittery splendor you can hear the ancient marine folk if you listen in the kinky marine taverns the kinky marine folk spanish songs italian wine and as if you were god you invent curses from the fifteenth meridian to the twentieth by yourself you invent international curses and from the libra mast you god of curses splashings unknown things you god of lost treasures you won’t look back nor spit to the wind unless black sails are hoisted on the admiral’s own masts chaste breezes will not kindle sparks in your pirate’s eyes unless you get used to chewing the rain and the tobacco

I have not forgotten the mediterranean I have plunged in the flames I cried with passion the joy to create and to be created reverberated in heavens and the prayers opened like enormous sails when one looked three crescents spread out all at once hayrettin’s songs flew like falcons from his arms windswept barefoot mariners of the algerian captain were holding messina and septe straits and all the others surrounding the caravans of ships they burned them up la-ilahe-il-allah but your festivities your troubles will not be forsaken by the stars in every constellation and the lighthouses in every isthmus then you would go to rome with hannibal long before that phoenicians carried the alphabet and the glass when dragons breathed sea monsters appeared the ghost of a genoese galley slave in rhodes castle his legs in shackles the whiplash on his back and latin songs pour forth from the ships of antonius

you are unforeseen unforgettable unbearable and deep as roguish as a deckhand or the mustache of a sailor the wind is blowing unconstrained from all sides your centuries old pirate fate is tattooed on your arms and on your boundless chests angel-faced mermaids and slippery dolphins in green and glittery speckles so what you understand about this world is the same what children understand although time is getting older you are still a child you are the ancient graveyard of pirates and sailors you are the graveyard of hayrettin’s songs with your majestic waves you are the big ocean’s star studded multitudes of plankton life

skates and sea anemones you are god and you contain countless other gods in your kingdom the master skippers who ruled over the currents some sailing north north-east some westward there was a captain joy we buried him in the arctic sea there was an andersen and a captain kidd skippers salih reis burak reis memi reis bursting in laughter together like canons in salvo being tossed around and scattered we died at a festival of giants then the fish-garths in kushadasi and surmene to be old and beautiful to defy memory to forget all the stars but recognize the north star at one glance then the italian fishermen with briny beards then like in hell in tatters bit by bit to enter a port where the fox spat copper to go ashore feeling like the karakurum desert and wretchedness of returning like a flood of wine o my beloved times the times when we sailed toward the south pole from the terra del fuega from the land of fire

(TURKÇESI ESKI DENIZ HALKI, SISLER BULVARI, ss 19-23 OK YAYINLARI, 3.BASKI,1970)

the notes of hamdi “isn’t it a wonder that both the one who doesn’t know the world and the one who knows talk about it.” kefevî

1. I have grown poisonous carnations in the pots of my alienation they had a peppery aroma like a summer evening meal on a rocky beach by the sea what I saw was a bloody darkness was I so wide open or was the world so narrow the sorrow in me like a wild plant was opening leaf by leaf as the trees were diminishing for fall 2. the mountains are hibernating at a distance the wind caresses the trees what passion whirls with the moths in the dervish light of huge candles in your eyes the enigmas of stars in your mouth a jasmine stem what are you musing about with your rosary’s sparkling beads as they roll on to the dark earth

the mountains are hibernating at a distance the night is flawless with a copper moon in an enchanted slumber the sounds of incesaz the songs of bearded ottoman composers played in hollow spaces a world-weary dainty hicazkâr a frantic şataraban and some nihavents that sparkle like magic lamps the enigma of when it began and when it ended what passion whirls with these moths in the dervish light of big candles who knows where and when it started who knows with whom without saying wheat to say bread without saying tree to say forest to ascend to the gallows at the crack of the dawn 3. I gathered the sunlight from the reflection of the leaves I saved it in the lens of my glasses to light my nights it smelled like burning cloves

4. with the weight of snow-blue fogs on their tops pale poplars contain the enormous sadness of autumn in my soul the loneliness of water water’s loneliness suddenly from the electric cables high voltage current like blood comes to the city in my soul the loneliness of water water’s loneliness no matter how much my age gets closer to death isn’t it strange that I also feel closer to my childhood the swallows are alighting into my hands 5. those are the plane trees of rugged lives smoky and hazy they are found in the magnificent western horizons when you look at them at a distance you can’t make out whether they are clouds or plane trees as soon as they loom up their mysterious leaves they vanish behind a sheet of rain a song in my heart the same one I sang the day I was arrested

the birds abandon the woods dragging behind their chirping like a swarm of sparks and the water lilies smile in their dreamy whiteness with heavy sighing a song in my heart the same one I sang the day I was arrested somehow girls loved in november tend to be dainty and shy in the reflection of the leaves perhaps they seem to blush a lot their eyelashes spray silver mists water drips from their finger tips their words dispersed by the winds they are all alone in death a song in my heart the same one I sang the day I was arrested the weight of loneliness bears heavily on the rushes because it cannot be stopped only occasionally like a gilded thread glisten the whistles of the invisible geese

6. the seagull swoops down so quickly its whiteness suspended in the air if it can’t catch the fish it kept an eye on it struggles with hunger in the water 7. the icy brightness of the cold seas where only erratic winds roam and ghost ships whose crews are dead seen through the icebergs seem like silent fish perhaps only the whistling of sails and the albatrosses there from the icy brightness of the cold seas in the memories of the last fishermen with harpoons are the old whales going down and coming up with their exhausted sprays shiny like silver fountains in a way life is without before or after in a way who knows how many autumns pile up on each other 8. appearing in the deserted quiet of distant shores with their refined elegance secretly gloomy

silvery herons like fine brooches birds’ hearts are under strain with worries like humans they may be feeling the approaching the storm they may be getting old they may not be able to fly any more the sky is forbidden to them are these the sailing ships that darken the west or are they the piles of clouds what are these fumes whose heart’s hazes which melancholy’s drizzles they look like a thousand years of suffering the moment they touch the seas the birds and the trees ah if I could see if I could see the dolphins with their bubbly gaiety how docile they are how serene they are farmers of hope doggedly roam the dark oceans night and day as soon as I put my glasses on I see that beach in büyükada where barefoot Trotsky strolled

he was sad as an extinguished volcano he had a fishing rod in one hand and a gun in the other because he was exiled from his own revolution

9. the night is an owl of cloudy feathers its quills are all grounded glass its gaze is a window perched on my right shoulder outspread and huge if darkness seems devastating at first sight sovereign of everything and everywhere somewhere inside it a kernel of light is growing secretly that kernel contains the enlightened forest of dialectics

BIRDS OF IMAGINATION the most frightening crimson ones hit the windows of my sleep with pointed beaks shiny like the scales of fish their loneliness is untamed their eyes are heavy maharajah eyes their magnetic crests like a handful of sparks their slender necks reach out to all kinds of daydreams you think they’re the red velvet holders of purple hubble-bubbles when they open their wings the clouds change their colors in their complicated feet they wear cloven slippers of lightning the echo of their horrible green screech narrows the horizons their shrieks pierce the bloody palms of the tyrants they’re the birds of imagination elusive turn into dust when touched to exist in freedom only is their most unforgivable crime. Tutuklunun Gűnlűğű, S. 45. Imgelem Kuşlari

MEHMET SIRAGADLARI if there’s a vacant stone in this land jam on top of it heaving and restless like a factory if there’s an empty fathom in this sea I am on top of it foggy and smoky like a boat in february I come out of the september mines blackened I am the evening light at the school of economics falling on the books respectfully through the rainwashed windows of all the mehmets existing it is my name doubtless from yunuz emre on I am mehmet siradağlari because I listened to the earth understood the iron felt the coals the drums beat up in the skies my invincibility in wars because I was hit with many bullets and wounded in the name of god. if I got up one mehmet I sat down a thousand mehmets I brought the turk from asia to europe volcanoes are jealous of my inextinguishable fires every bayonet against imperialism is my name from mustafa kemal on I am mehmet siradağlari no matter how tight they were bound in my wrists the bloody handcuffs enslaving me to myself are unshackled the dark field is dizzy the factory is hungry for some reason the last windows always face the prison yards even if the sun is shining inside rne outside is all winter but the gates are wide open and the chains are broken most majestic ideas are rousing the masses every step toward a free socialism is my name from nazim hikmet on I am mehmet siradağlari

Yasak sevişmek, 1961, p. 73

connectives in the last few cool days of summer in september one thinks of the arrival of fall on the horizon like a ship with tattered sails for some reason fall is the time to think of one’s own death the covering of the dead body by yellowed leaves like a photo of a forgotten fight in the magazines 1. those are the girls with tired eyelids and blue pulses they search an alla turca tune with languorous fingers in the keys of a piano their continence has a somber elegance those are the girls who live with the memory of an unlived love they are like ghosts abducted from a dream 2. those are the eyes that are wild and terrible with the redness of fires with their dark eyelashes they thicken a bloody love affair they are not eyes but sprays of bullets shot by the barrel of a gun

those are the eyes that are the flame of the lighter the tip of the poisoned dagger they stand like a ruby chandelier in our loneliness wherever we go they find us they come and they find us 3. those are the summers that rise from the sea with a golden haze like the songs of love every day one melody fades away from our memory a secret wind scatters the purple sands of the beach those are the summers that take the oleanders of abandoned gardens for a stroll like shimmering candles gliding in starlight 4. those are the words that are bitter crackling like iron whips in the prison yards those are the words at times like a pomegranate tree in bloom the light of the sea reflected in a mountain’s horizon like mysterious knives

those are the words that are the roses of fire of an endless imagination they are born and they die with the flutterings of butterflies we carry those words in our hearts like a loaded gun until the day we die for those words that we uttered once we are prepared to die

“what I wrote and how you understood is a curious story.” muallim naci

A SONG IN MY HEART those are the plane trees of rugged lives smoky and hazy they are found in the magnificent western horizons when you look at them at a distance you can't make out whether they are clouds or plane trees as soon as they 100m up with their mysterious leaves they vanish behind a sheet of rain a song in my heart the same one I sang the day I was arrested the birds abandon the woods dragging behind their chirping like a bunch of sparks and 'the water lilies smile in their dreamy whiteness with heavy sighs a song in my heart the same one I sang the day I was arrested somehow girls loved in November tend to be wary and delicate in the reflection of the leaves perhaps they seem to blush a lot their eyelashes spray silver mists water drips from their finger tips

their words dispersed by the winds they are all alone in death a song in my heart the same one I sang the day I was arrested the weight of loneliness bear& heavily on the rushes because it cannot be stopped only occasionally like a gilded thread ,-;- (, glisten the whistles of the invisible geese

BOYLE BIR SEVMEK'TEN gőzlüklü hamdi'nin notlari,5, ss 93-95, BILGI YAYINLARI 1977-79

POEM WITH THE SOUND OF “CH” AS IN SELCHUK (Kochaklama, Eulogy) how many suns the selchuk shepherds lift up with their pitch forks shouting heave ho how many naked suns of spun glass their iron beards igniting sparks more tribes are coming from central asia with twenty five hundred sixty five hundred tents a poled dome pitched to perfection to the shrieks of the avshars1 on the heights underneath the crickets the black crows cracked mountain holes full of eels underneath konya bayshehir sivrihisar2 and far away the byzantine hyenas more tribes are coming from central asia they are light like a playful heart their teeth are strong their eyes slanted a bit in their ears no sound of the non-existing seas in their palates the taste of the snow blue milk freshly drawn from their robust mares and fragrant a few elderly men of broken hopes with bits of’ salt in the roots of their hair their lips are sealed tight you can’t open with a knife in their eye sockets constantly dwindling a sandy river eaten up by the pebbles with its dried up beds moaning in the wind a long hoofed animal climbs up a tree a lark touches with its glazed wings the thorns like a scimitar thrown oguz women with their strong faces break up loneliness and turn it into dust their breasts are full with nipples like blackberries Their muscles are tightly bound to their bones their voices full of forgiveness they laugh out biting hard the sun of tart pears quinces bitter oranges they make a yogurt so thick even a knife can’t cut 1 2

Avshar – the name of a Turcoman tribe in South Turkey and South Iran Konya, Bayshehir and Sivrihisar – cities in central Anatolia

a wild honey resting in their metal buckets more tribes are coring from central asia with their fishbone eyelashes and leather hats men carved into hollows sword and mace their exhaustion dripping into their hoary mustaches their heaving while passing through the forests is the same as the hungry axes they cut tree by tree under a spreading crackling fire their herds a dusty cry in front of them pulled and carried away by the shepherd dogs between the shimmerings of the poplar trees perhaps from khorasan perhaps from the steppes of pamir into the inlands of sakarya3 with flesh hoof and horns welcome turk!... to your right and to your left water all over your earth is trembling with a mad abundance how much lead how much sulfur can you extract your fingers draw wine if you stretch your hand from the seeded grapes a vineyard full a greenish olive oil is shining in many pots the smell of the cottage cheese is for you to savor many mountain goats are falling into your fire drawing delicate crescents with their horns in the night welcome turk... cloudy a bit dreamy perhaps all your hopes are raised at once you gave your name to this land and pledged your existence

3

Sakarya – a river in central Anatolia