LEYLA IŞIK

 

LEYLA IŞIK

 

Only Just

 

as the new one wears down the old ones

time tends to start all over.

by touting joyfully for a new house

a new love emerges

out of the hopes expecting a new sunshine.

the moment tells about the new one

through the renewed faces

of a new love…

on the curtains of the incoming time

new hopes are being cherished in patterns

as they are giving color in their design

to the roses layer by layer

they are driving lots of new joy to the depths

of new love affairs,

All over again

©️Leyla IŞIK

ENGLISH TRANSLATION BY MESUT ŞENOL

 

 

Our Travel To Other Times

 

“Can you recall how much time passed, and how many times the sandglass circulated my memories with your absence?”

Maybe you are not aware of it…

Everything seems to be scattered old photographs in the middle of my worn-out loneliness.

To whichever one I extend my hand,

I feel like I am being hurt from inside.

What I have gone through is setting on fire from the end,

I find myself inside the flames.

Though I am not alone

in the middle of these ruins, in my garden I greened without your presence.

My eyes do water the flowers.

The fragrant jasmine you wore on your collar revives…

Your voice has got the tone of a violin concerto.

You don’t stand tall.

For some reason you are standing with the head bent.

You used to say “This dance cannot be performed alone”.

Now, your eyes tell me, “shut up, don’t say anything”

I see.

The trains commuting through my heart

will never let us meet.

Our ticket has already been bought.

“Our travel to other times”.

It’s a pity!

As my hand was extended for the last time.

The sandglass shall not revolve time one more time…

©️Leyla IŞIK

İzmir / 28.07.2011; 02.30 / at the hour with your absence

 

ENGLISH TRANSLATION BY MESUT ŞENOL

 

 

What Makes Me Emotionally Exhausted

 

The woman felt deeply sad as the sun was setting. Her hand was on the curtain of which roses changed their color, and she was keeping an eye on the road. Coming from her heart, she whispered “FROM SO FAR AWAY ROADS” with a hope of his arrival.

“How wouldn’t I have known that I would be embracing loneliness while you and I were becoming us…

That I would have hidden my most beautiful tears in the folds of the silk handkerchief, and cried.

Now, my almond-eyes are like two leaves dried on their twigs attached to the roads because of longing for you.

The steam coming out of our hot bread has been mixed with the multicolor of the evening. The plates are staying on the dinner table as they are, and your favorite dish has turned cold. The rose, I picked from the garden got dried in the middle of the table, appears lowly.

I am tired of giving a clip on the ear of the betraying time hung on the wall, and hour-hand and minute-hand are separated from each other…

I didn’t let anybody sit on the place where you sat.

My left side is empty like the pillow you were snuggling and putting your head on it…

Where are you?

Life is fed up with being the repetition of the repetition.

I happened to dislike the evenings…

A bird always awaits the sunrise in my being away from you, and I envy the birds returning to their nest.

And a song keeps playing in my ears all the time: “From so far away roads”.

Your “promise” keeps echoing, wobbling, and swaying in the void.

My being takes me from me, and carries me to the place where you are…

Isn’t every lonesome heart a graveyard? It buries me as well.

What are left behind are unattended hiccups.

If only you would come!

Then darkness would be ashamed, longing would be buried somewhere, and loneliness making me emotionally exhausted drains away.”

©️Leyla IŞIK

28.09.2011; 01.45 İzmir / at the hour with your absence

 

ENGLISH TRANSLATION BY MESUT ŞENOL

 

LEYLA IŞIK