LEYLA IŞIK

 

Death

 

Time passes over the cotton thread

05:30 a.m.

the hour hand chases the minute hand

Tick-tock tick-tock

Here everything is a lie.

The seed cracking inside the soil,

a life getting out of a broken egg,

through the vagina,

from the groin

To light out of darkness

Life was just a scream…

Tick-tock tick-tock

06:30 a.m.

The minute hand caught the hour hand

How quickly it passes by

Over the thread

life is of time

Whatever was to have been lived

erased

a tissue of lies.

Under the ground

lies what is real.

©Leyla Işık

English Translation by Mesut Şenol

 

I Turned Into Nothing

*For my Mother

 

As if your face never paled

Never

Your smiles on your genial face

Your strong cheeks

There’s still brightness in your eyes, that light

Yet

Why wouldn’t your breathing be heard?

Ants are everywhere

Did they come to your rose scent?

Do they draw to the ground?

 

Your hands are in my hands like a dried twig

I kiss them, I smell them.

Sorrow is dripping again

From your white hair’s forelock.

Did your songs of “Did you tinge with kohl Leyla” be over?

Your tongue kept quiet.

Your eyes are on my eyes

Your looks

Your looks are locked on mine.

At the moment

Will “Red vein,

Purple vein,

Carotid artery” be silent?

Will your dried lips get thirsty for a drop of water…?

Is the body get undressed from its pains?

Will your soul fly away from its cage?

Is it time for separation?

What would I do now,

What would I do now, mother?

 

I imprisoned my fears

My concerns

All my four sides are of a mirror

Your face in the mirror is my face

My way is towards my spirituality

With patience

I get out of Me in me

Through a flute arriving in the secret of a thousand troubles

With the breath blown by the Creator

Throughout the voyage

Of life’s seven nodes

By forsaking Leyla

I turned into Nothing, MOTHER.

 

Leyla Işık

English Translation by Mesut Şenol

 

The Arrival

 

Oh, Oh!

It’s finally time,

The hour when the night hands the day.

How the sky looks in the pink,

What’s this silence?

Why have birds quieted?

The exultant sea has become quiet.

This vessel is being put into commission.

Uncertain images are swarming.

Images are in a rush to say farewell to kith and kin

Feeling tired of bittersweet moments.

The anchor is being rised.

Souls are aching

For hello to be born soon.

Unquestioned,

Not called to account

To arrive at

©Leyla Işık

English Translation by Mesut Şenol

 

LEYLA IŞIK