LEYLA IŞIK

LEYLA IŞIK

WHENEVER I GET LOST IN THE MOMENTS WITH YOU. . .

Whenever I get lost in the moments with you. . .

The sky darkens, and the clouds get flurried

And unload their burdens of rain.

In the sea of being without you I burry myself in the deep waters.

Whenever I get lost in the moments with you. . .

One side of me becomes you, and I have no other side.

My legends remain in a love story among the books

Whose pages have been worn out.

Whenever I get lost in the moments with you. . .

I lower my head, and my shoulders collapse.

I fall apart otel.

And I become a bird circling in despair

Without branches and a nest to settle on.

Whenever I get lost in the moments with you. . .

I complete whatever is half-finished,

And set all times up for us,

And then mix with the beats of your heart

Inseparably, like clock hands.

TRANSLATED BY BAKI YIĞIT

BE (MY) PASSIONATE LOVE

-As my beloved ones fell off the branch of life one by one, only I have remained

longing for leaves like a dried branch. . . and like cracked soil longing for rains.-

In your absence I have conversations with me at the hours belonging to me. I dredge up the pyoid separations.

In order to remove the poison of being without you that contaminated my blood. My heart aches, grieving over the dredged-up separations.

I take to the road to you as if I were flying, and wear sad-looking wings for catching fireflies in the utter darknesses.

Has the winter in my heart closed the roads off . . . or the fallen september leaves of my faded dreams have done it? . . . I do not know . . . I do not recall.

It must have been due to my wish to forget it.

My memories have gathered dust like the faded pictures in an old chest.

When making wounds on the body of a tree

you never thought . . .

that sometime other names would be carved on my name you carved . . . or the trunk of the old “plane tree” defeated by life would be pruned, did you?

I guess the reason that I cannot hear whistles in birds' sounds anymore is this.

Neither the boza seller's 'bozaaa!' voice, who passes through the street! . . . Nor the junk dealer's 'junk dealaa!' voice. . . Nor the kids' "tag you're it!" voices that are mixed with the evening darkness . . .

I want to long again for

a pair of hazel eyes I can look their pupils into . . .

and your sweat that soaks on my skin like falling raindrops.

I want to long again for

your kiss with the lips of the night like fluttering of the rose you attached to my chest . . .

I want to long again for

your forgetting your hands timid as a sparrow on my skin. . .

Be (my) passionate love

-As the dirty dark nightmares rust in my soul-

Do not recall the nights you were late.

Extend rains from clouds,

Water the purple bunches on my body.

Let the particular body

Grow taller in the very fine night. . .

Let the skin smile innocently, like a purple violet.

In this place where only "I" have remained

Without becoming ashes in the burning flame of your mouth,

Shower love wet with rain on my lips.

Be (my) passionate love that does not end.

TRANSLATED BY BAKI YIĞIT

I SAY, IF ONLY. . . DON’T YOU HEAR ME?

Could we know at a time to come, saying "If only",

We would like to have again

The many things we had experienced

With the soul-shattering broken words on our tongues

That have remained from our passionate love?

Every night

With my side offended at the world and fragile glances, I look in the mirror,

And postpone the sad flowers I have greened inside of me to the next spring.

What would I have done without even a few fragments of hope pouring into my heart . . .

Understand! In your absence this city I got wet in their deprived streets

Is narrow to me from now on.

I stare out into the sea by it,

And my silent side converses with the seagulls with broken wings.

And do you know that my poems pouring onto my lips bleed?

For this reason the color of the clouds and the leaving day is red.

I say, if only. . . If only. . .

You obviously don’t hear me.

I have not sleep one wink.

My eyelids are resisting the night

To see the sun to rise again.

My migratory birds are migrating from inside of me.

I am sadly staring behind them again.

It is snowing, it is drizzling.

The leaves of the plane tree we carved our names into its body are turning grey.

You are absent!

The walls I have built in my deprived heart are no longer a remedy.

I say, “If only”, don’t you hear me?

TRANSLATED BY BAKI YIĞIT

LEYLA IŞIK