AYTEN MUTLU

 

AYTEN MUTLU

 

Migration

 

suffering

calls me

the awakening of a leaf to september

moves inside me

 

a lust

for travelling

carries my voice

to untouched wounds

 

i look for

my hands

to touch

a far away heart

 

in the story of death

maturing

under the ground

 

a migration of

swallows

shades

loaded with

gold dust

 

leaving

pale spots

in my brain

 

it scatters me

to the story

of a leaf

written in the wind

 

 

 

Let’s Drink

 

autumn is here

the sun and wine are witnesses

and the vine leaves yellowing on branches

sharpened knives of light  are witnesses

to the regrets we’ve gathered

from the vineyard of time

 

let’s go to her today, to time

to the red Goddess who covers up our memory

with her tulle skirt

 

we’ve somehow already lost

more than we have

like a jug of wine we poured out without drinking

 

there are too many things to forget

too few to remember

the love whose sky we are leaning on, is witness

 

come on let’s drink

the rest of our lives

when descending evening like a break-up song

let's the wine spread

within our blood slowly by slowly

Like a moment of Vuslat*

 

*Vuslat: reunion with one's beloved

 

 

We Got Lost Inside Us

 

they were talking

beyond a faraway place

solitude and me

left the voices into the table clothes

and walked

 

the blue moon was also walking with us

a hazel cat in the blind looks

of flashing red lights

stood and looked at the shades

of intertwined ghosts

which fell into the waters in Bozcaada

like a solemn lion

stretchingly for a while

 

a man was sitting alone

a woman was sitting alone

we were two of us

you with me

me with you hand in hand

we escaped from a crowdy loneliness

and joined a lonely crowd

 

first we read sorrow in each other

then we sat on wet grasses

you spoke keeping silent

i kept silence speaking

 

while ships in Bozcaada Harbor were waiting for

people

lights were off

the cat went

 

having left each other into wet grasses

                   ---at a place in time

you and me...

 

TRANSLATED BY BAKİ YİĞİT

 

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, taiwan 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). Akköy Magazine Poetry Worker's Award (2015) Ismet Kemal Karadayı poetry honorary award (2017)  Works: 14 poetry books and 15 Translated poetry books. 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.