AYTEN MUTLU

AYTEN  MUTLU

WE GOT LOST INSIDE US

they were talking

beyond a faraway place

solitude and me

left the voices into the table clothes

and walked

the blue moon was also walking with us

a hazel cat in the blind looks

of flashing red lights

stood and looked at the shades

of intertwined ghosts

which fell into the waters in Bozcaada

like a solemn lion

stretchingly for a while

a man was sitting alone

a woman was sitting alone

we were two of us

you with me

me with you hand in hand

we escaped from a crowdy loneliness

and joined a lonely crowd

first we read sorrow in each other

then we sat on wet grasses

you spoke keeping silent

i kept silence speaking

while ships in Bozcaada Harbor were waiting for

people

lights were off

the cat went

having left each other into wet grasses

---at a place in time

you and me...

TRANSLATION: BAKI YIĞIT

İçimizde kaybolduk

konuşuyorlardı

uzak ötesi bir yerde

yalnızlık ve ben

bırakıp sesleri masa örtülerine

yürüdük

mavi ay da yürüyordu bizimle

yanıp sönen kırmızı ışıkların

kör bakışlarında ela bir kedi

heybetli bir aslan gibi

durup gerinerek baktı bir süre

birbirine sarılmış hayaletlerin

Bozcaada sularına düşen suretlerine

bir adam yalnız başına oturuyordu

bir kadın yalnız başına oturuyordu

ikimizdik biz

sen benimle

ben seninle el ele

kalabalık bir yalnızlıktan kaçıp

yalnız bir kalabalığa karıştık

hüznü okuduk önce birbirimizde

sonra ıslak çimenlere oturduk

sen susarak konuştun

ben konuşarak sustum

Bozcaada limanında gemiler

beklerken kimseleri

söndü ışıklar

kedi gitti

sen ve ben

---zamanın bir yerinde

ıslak çimenlere bırakarak birbirimizi…

TAKE A CUP OF COFFE WITH ME

Please take a seat,

to have coffe with me

you may go later

you may take whatever we have lived together

Now please take a rest,

to have a cup of coffe

Let your hands remain traces on the cups

so do your eyes, lips

so do the unworn years we had together

let the half songs remain traces

Please take a cup of coffe

for the last time with me

Then you can go

as if you have never come

TRANSLATION: HILAL KARAHAN

Bir kahve iç benimle

Otur, bir kahve iç

Sonra gidersin

Götürürsün ne varsa yaşadığımız

Bekle biraz, bir kahve iç

İzi kalsın ellerinin fincanda

Gözlerinin, dudaklarının

Birlikte eskimeyen yıllarımızın

İzi kalsın yarım kalan şarkıların

Bir kahve iç n’olur son kez benimle

Hiç gelmemiş gibi

Gidersin sonra.

LET’S DRINK

autumn is here

the sun and wine are witnesses

and the vine leaves yellowing on their branches

sharpened knives of light are witnesses

to the regrets we’ve gathered

from the vineyard of time

today let’s go to it, to time,

to the red goddess who covers memory

with her tulle skirt

somehow we’ve already lost

more than we have

like a jug of wine we poured out without drinking

there are too many things to forget

too few to remember

the love whose sky we lean on is witness

come on let’s drink

the rest of our lives

when descending evening like a break-up song

let's the wine spread

within our blood slowly

like a moment of reunion

TRANSLATION: BAKI YIĞIT

İçelim

işte sonbahar

tanıktır güneş ve şarap

dalında sararan yaprakları asmaların

ışığın bilediği bıçaklar tanıktır

zamanın bağından derlediğimiz

pişmanlıklara

ona gidelim bugün, zamana

belleği tülden etekleriyle

örten kızıl tanrıçaya

içmeden döktüğümüz bir testi şarap gibi

bizde olandan fazlasını

çoktan yitirdik nasılsa

unutulacak ne çok şey var

ne az hatırlanacak

tanıktır göğüne yaslandığımız aşk

hadi içelim

ömrümüzün kalanını

bir ayrılık şarkısı gibi inerken akşam

son bir vuslat demi olsun

kanımıza yudum yudum

yayılan şarap

AYTEN MUTLU

AYTEN MUTLU, a Turkish poet and writer (born in Bandırma, Turkey. Graduated from the Faculty of Management  of İstanbul University in 1975. She was retired from The Central Bank. Her political activism began in high school, when she was fifteen years old. Being in political activity she took part in the Women’s  Rights Movement too. She has published poetry, prose, short stories and essays on literary criticism. She also translated the works of a number of contemporary poets from English to Turkish that published many of them in periodicals. She translates the works of the women poets from Antiquity to the present days in  selections from the world over. Her research on women poets from Antiquity to the present day, published in many literary magazines. She presented papers at some universities. Some of her poems took place in many countries, some magazines, newspapers and anthologies in France, Sweden, Germany, Spain, Senegal, Morocco, Italy, Serbia, Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Macedonia, Romania, Spain, Argentina, South Korea, India and Russia. She is a laureate of  Ibrahim Yildizoglu Literary Prize (1999), Poetry Prize of the International Meeting of the Poets of Yalova (2001) and Sunullah Arısoy Literary Prize (2005). Some Critics wrote about her poems: “Her poetry explodes with sound and meaning. She reflects a struggle within herself, as well as a view of the world in which all horror and beauty are seen at once and often intermingled. Her opposition and political ideas are reflected in her poems but from a lyrical point of view.” “Mutlu is a master the condensed poem, of the image that illumines and quietly explodes with sound and meaning”. She said about her work; “My aim is to write poems that will sing like the peoples songs of the world. I wish to reach and enrich people in mines, on farms, homes, factories, prisons: to entertain, to show, to illumine. Because, I believe that poetry is wide broad like life and will somehow  succesfully call the humanity in people.

Works: Dayan Ey Sevdam (Resist Oh My Love, 1984), Vaktolur (A Time Comes When…, 1986), Seni Özledim (I Missed You, 1990), Kül İzi (The Trace of Ash, 1993), Denize Doğru (Towards the Sea, 1996), Çocuk ve Akşam (Child And Evening, 1999), Taş Ayna (Stone Mirror, 2002), Yitik Anlam Peşinde (In Search of Lost Meaning, 2004), Ateşin Köklerinde (In Roots Of Fire - Selected Poems, 2006) Uzun Gemide Akşam (Le soir Dans Le Bateau Long, 2007) Eşikte (At Threshold-2009) долга вечер на одборот (published in 2011 in Macedonian) Threshold (2009), Istanbul eyes (Ochii Istanbulului-2012 in Romania- Les Yeux d’Istanbul poésie-2014 in France and published in Turkey in 2013 ) Stone Mirror- poetry published in India-2014 Dew Drops (2016)

Translations: Ölü Canlar (Dead Souls), Gogol, 2006. Sen Sanırdım Her Baharı - Çağdaş İngiliz Şair Kadınlar Seçkisi (I thought it was you every spring - Anthology of English poems of women poets), 2007 (with Dr. Dincer Figun). Ölümün Anayurdu - Dragojlovic-Dragan (Death’s Homeland) - Poetry-2009 (with Dr. Dincer Figun). Neredeyse Siyah- Niculina Oprea (Almost Black-Poems-2010). Sana Bakıyorum -Maram al-Masri - (I Look at You) Poems I-2010).Kükreyiş Ve Sessizlik-  Nedeljko-Terzic (Rrugissement and Silence-Poetry-2012).Yağmur Yağabilir- (Rain it may) Ashis Sanyal (2014). Ölüm, O Çıplak Gelir- Maram al-Masri (2014).Sonsuzluk (Infinity) Natasa Bajic (2014). Kazınmış Işık (The Engraved Light) Militsa Yeftimiyevic Lilic (2014). Kara Güne Kaside- The Odd to Black Days) Stevka Smitran. Tutkunun Kanatlarında- On the Wings of Desire- Sappho