AYTEN MUTLU

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