AYTEN MUTLU
THE MOON IN THE MIDDLE EAST
the moon is of stone, not of light
here
it is an old mill in the land of
wind
the water it touches bleeds in the
skin of the black-oil
like a wounded silence
the moon is the blood clot of
infinity here
scattered sands of heart in a
mirrorless night
is a puzzle smelling blood
which shines in a dagger stock
the moon is a negro who assumes
himself a white
a mirror which time has dropped
in the border of the borderless
defeat
the rhythm confined to the unbreakable
circle
the dream which is sometimes taken
out
fusty chests and seen
the moon is a lightning buried in
dust
a stickless dervish in an
unfinished tale
who girded on his sword in a tent
a decaying sheath, a non-determined
insurrection
that burns in the womb of an
unfinished night
hungry for pain, a suicide to
happiness
the desolated wail of the
shattering earth
the meaning trembling in the foam
of the soul
man’s hopeless lovemaking with
chaos
the first line of the retorted
silence
the last festival of the vintage in
the soul
the torn innocence of the atom
in the first night of the crazy
world
the moon, eternal kaf mountain in
the heart of the stone
the submissive mother’s insane and
gentle child
the time of being hungry for pain
of momentless livings
the noble animal of poetry that has
broken off its chain
from the walls of the first cave
the moon is the straight bridge of
purity here
the reed flute which the doomsday
middleman plays
the wine spilled on the day from
the jug of the darkness
the glazeless split of night in the
thick part of the glaze
the blood of man leaking from
creaked soil
the satrap shooting off foxed boks
the moon is an oasis waiting in the
desert here
the bedouin sleep on hyena’s feet
the hell called paradise in the
silver domes
the arachis oil smell in parcel
bombs
thrown to the past from God’s
ceiling
time is the changing face of the
moon here
the endless rosary of patience in
adobe caves
whose future is knotted to its past
it is an earthquake watching the
overground
on the silkroad of the word exiled
to underground
for the moon is a lonely shaman
carrying the light in his heart in
the Middle East
TRANSLATED BY BAKİ YİĞİT
ORTADOĞU’DA AY
ay burada taştandır, ışıktan
değil
eski bir değirmendİr rüzgârın ülkesinde
değdiği sular yaralı bir
sessizlik
gibi kanar karayağın teninde
burada ay sonsuzluğun pıhtısı
dağılan yürek kumu aynasız bir gecede
bir hançerin sapında parıldayan
kan kokulu bilmece
ay burada kendini beyaz sanan bir
zenci
zamanın elinden düşürdüğü bir ayna
sınırında sınırsız yenilginin
kırılmaz çembere hapsolan ritim
küf kokan sandıklardan
arada bir çıkarılıp bakılan rüya
ay, toza gömülü şimşek
asasız dervişi bitmeyen bir masalın
kılıcını kuşanmış bir çadırda
çürüyen kın, kararsız bir ihtilal
bitmeyen bir gecenin rahminde yanan
acıya aç, mutluluğa intihar
çatırdayan toprağın ıssız iniltisi
canın köpüğünde titreyen anlam
umutsuz sevişmesi insanın ve kaosun
imbikten damıtılan suskunun ilk
dizesi
son şenliği ruhta bağbozumunun
çıldıran dünyanın ilk gecesinde
atomun yırtılan masumiyeti
ay, ebedi kaf dağı taşın kalbinde
deli ve uysal çocuğu tevekkül anaların
ansız yaşamaların acıya aç zamanı
ilk mağaranın duvarlarından
zincirini koparmış soylu şiir
hayvanı
ay burada saflığın sırat köprüsü
kıyamet tellalının üflediği ney
karanlığın testisinden güne saçılan şarap
sırın ince yerinde sırsız gece kırığı
insan kanı çatlak topraktan sızan
sararmış kitaplardan fırlayan satrap
burada ay, çölde bekleyen vaha
sırtlan ayaklarında bir bedevi
uykusu
yaldızlı kubbelerde cennet adlı
cehennem
tanrılar katından geçmişe fırlatılan
bombalı paketlerde fıstık yağı kokusu
zaman burda ayın değişen yüzü
kerpiç mağaralarda sonsuz sabır tesbihi
geleceği geçmişine düğümlü
yeraltına sürülmüş sözün ipek
yolunda
bir depremdir yerüstünü bekleyen
çünkü ay ışığı yüreğinde taşıyan
yalnız bir şamandır Ortadoğu’da
FEMİNA
what a ritual is required for this
curse, Femina
in order to assemble the fragments
of life
with which magical words will you
dance
at the dawn of the new day?
this is the curse of thousands of
years, Femina
there is no another day, another
world
come on dance, holding a bowl of
poison
with iron rings around your ankles
pry up the nail of all the holy
books
with the nacre flowers of the
self-conscious syllables
dance Femina with your thin heels
shake the scarlet opal of the soil
curl in the image of Mother Cybele
like the thin snake of the cool
stars
in the lair of the long furry
animals
there is no another day, another
world
play the deception of a thousand
years, femine
with the proud bells of obedience
the old rhythm, the sound of
tearing flesh inside of you
the sighs of the helpless silence
will accompany your dance
do not expect a signal from the age
of the silver shadows
come like a shadow in the light
have the pure drink of
contradiction
as if sipping the honeyed sorbets
come like a burning land in the
summer mist
blow in from the edges of the mind
crashing into the madness
from mister god’s bed
from the fog in black tulle
in black roses
in the red-hot foam of the laced
cookers
come on dance, the ritual has
already begun
play the bells of love with your
magic hands
Femina, the crazy bride of
gentleness
dance on the day of black yarn of
the shiny stones
dance with the cursed scream of the
swamp birds
dance the browned soldier of the
everyday struggles
dance to the inviting rhythm of the
lost lives
there is no another day, another
world
at the dawn of the new day
Femina
Dance !
TRANSLATED BY BAKI YIĞIT
MADLY IN LOVE WITH SKY
In a place where your dreams are
lost, where your heart’s burnt into ashes
I am caressing the very beginning,
that bursting demon, the reply of
the silence
the shuddering substance is calling
me to the deadend
a flower is blooming slowly and
silently
one who is madly in love with the
sky
just before the rain, that ancient
balance
the scattered souls are shivering
just after visiting a graveyard,
that scream without any coast
the inside of my bones getting all
wet
the dead who are prayed for
the dead who are not prayed for
the happy-go-lucky feast of larva
the nestling of the sparrow is
falling down the nest
the web-like membrane is wrapping
up the memory of time
the eye lids of the sleepless seed
ar heavy
an underground maddness
is kissing my heart
was it only because of the broken
lines of life
because of the orchards that we
walked in
the crops
how can the song of the siren
of nonexistence be answered
the shuddering substance is calling
me to the deadend
an abandoned train is frightened of
being lost
one that is lost among straight
lines
each wave is at the narrow beach of
the soul
testing itself at the precipitous
cliffs
I became the motherland, not the lover
my misdeeds ran before me, faster
and faster
how shall I wake up my soul so darkened
says one of the dead
to whom should I ask
where and who I am
so good for the dead not to
question
the dead with yellow voices
the freesia that blooms in the moon
the guardians of the graveyard
flowers
have all forgotten the red
being cold
kissing
what kind of a freedom is this?
your dreams, all lost, where your
heart is burnt into ashes
at noon, in the graveyard, just
before the darkness
I am caressing the devil, the one
who is weeping
one more flower is withering with a
rumbling sound
not caring about the tranquility of
the dead
Translated by Baki Yiğit
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). Akkoy Magazine Poetry Labor
Award (2015) İsmet
Kemal Karadayı poetry honorary award (2017) 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) Sipirit
Cycle-poetry published in Serbia-2017
Dear Ayten Mutlu; She said; "Song of the Future is poetry."is a world poet who tells how great the role of poetry will be in shaping the future of societies.
ReplyDeleteI wish success.
With My Love...