NEVIN KOÇOĞLU

NEVIN KOÇOĞLU

YESTERRAIN

Almarina the sun is down one more time

and again the  tempest of leaves

You know yesterrain

two sunny days added around here,

I turned my chair

and my face to the yard,

some labourers are streching a net around the trees,

the trees,

whose soul is in the deepest golden slumber

The fowl get fearful when the bells ring Almerina

I've  never known fear.

All night, I watch the stars up in the sky, still,

counting the pebbles in my heart

this is all I can do-

forlorn....

Open all the shutters Almerina,

Shutters closed feels like death, while you're  alive,

This darkness has little to do with what time of the day it's, really.

For  the mountains are hushed, and sycamores,

are now the swans singing the tune of Maggiore..

My voice is chattering with itself now only,

reflecting on my countanence...

But Almerine, wipe your tears away..

Some even more loneome out there.

We're erroneus Almerina,

while believing ''the pebbles can breathe''

the seaweeds can narrate the deep, the lake can speak with the blue..

we had belived

that the breeze would wisper a different story into our ears, every day,

It seems like it was the silence talking to us,

summonning us to the shore of this chilly lake,

just the silence, nothing more....

Let us walk now to the lake, Almerina, I want to go to sleep....

*Mahmud Derviş

DON'T  FORGIVE ME

I

And the verger rang the bell sixteen times

My lips are chapped

the river of the leaf deprived of water

The bronz chalice of the church

has no wine.....

II

Laughed the mahagony doors that swalllowed their locks

silenced the mouldy ebony that reached to heavens

Iron doors of the creepy crowly

shrunk their exoskeletons while crawling the sole burning hot stone yards

I was left at their door, my hand on my forehead,

complete....

III

I burned all my studs...

before that perfect black fell asleep

Thousands of fireflies flew towards you from my neck

single color of death, twelfe colors of resurrection

burned the burgeon in the branches of waxe trees.

with no soot.....

IV

Yeshua hiding behind that white feather

In the mid of the staircase of death

I saw it, you saw it

He did not....

V

How many times a glided from my own fire...

''Do not forgive me''

AND I TESTIFY

I

Whither away all the trees once they 'hibernate in water'

and your heart whithers away,

the heartbeat pendent on the highest offshoot...

II

When the eyes of the skys fall into the water

I came to know that green is more akin to the pain than the black

and that unforgiveness was what was oozing out of that crock

I counted how many times the scorpion whirled towards tha ashes

inside the circle of scarlet flame

III

The golden daffodil under the naked tree

the purple hyacinth falling out of my hair,

the lace on the weaving loom,

would it know how hard it is to be cleansed from the scarlet?

while carrying the fire inside your palm...

IV

Here I am,

in the shadow of your countenance

in the silence of flowing nothingness

And I testify..

that the cracks of my walls

can only be plastered with solitude

V

And now-

one must die like a dead tree leaning on a river bank,

close to heavens, far away from you

One must die

TRANSLATER: HALE KORAY

NEVIN KOÇOĞLU

NEVIN KOCOGLU is a Turkish poet, journalist, human rights and environmental activist living in Turkish capital, Ankara. She holds a B.Sc. in Public Administration and is currently working towards achieving her second degree in Sociology. She is the owner of two poetry books, “Tanrı’nın Vişne Bahçesi” and “Tuz ve Gece”, translated in many languages as English, German, French, Persian, Spanish, Arabic and Kurdish. Furthermore, she is a recipient of Vahittin Bozgeyik Poetry Award in 2012. She has been actively taking part in international poetry festivals and contributing in international anthologies for many years.