METIN TURAN

 

I Will Not Write Peace Poems

 

I.

 

Every time I cross a boundry my words get slower:

The official forgets I am from "the bleeding place of the map"

And looks at me with the commanding eyes saying, 'Where are you coming from and why?'

I become silent.

My passport spits up blood.

 

Whereas I know the bullet that killed the white pigeon in my sky.

I know which merchant's purse the dollars shine in is

In the bank account that enlarges the swamp.

 

 

II.

 

It was a cold whistle sound in the dark

Near East, Middle East, Far East . . .

It's the day when the sea cathes fire.

Boko Haram in Nigeria, ISIS in Mesopotamia.

All kind of killing machines.

My human lifetime, my nature lifetime, my lake lifetime.

If I come to an end, so do words.

Horses stop neighing, and Gypsies forget the most playful dance.

The poison grows inside of me.

 

 

III.

 

Bees, honey bees sting the ones they feel uncomfortable with.

They leave their weapons where they sting.

Then they are ashamed of what they have done, and prefer to die.

Mankind, how can I say,

Makes bigger, bigger bombs.

More effective weapons, bullets, and poison so that

He can sink back into the chair of the killing machine,

And start watching our darkening skies and cold hair as he gets stronger.

 

 

IV.

 

Peace!

It was a great song in my voice.

It went away with an Afghan girl's petrol blue eyes.

Peace was in Palestinian's scream who stuck a smile between his lips.

Peace! It is in my Kurdish, Arab and Assyrian brothers' stabbed looks.

Which call is this, which call whose name I have carried

From Ecuador, North and South China to the poles.

It has been left in dictionaries in the twenty-first century, too.

 

 

V.

 

No!

I will have a hand to rub salt into my friend's wound.

I will have a voice to flow effervescently in the seas.

I will not write peace poems in this way.

 

Translated By Baki Yiğit

 

A Lazy Joke

 

let's not walk together, so they think we are crowded.

 

I bent down to the ground, and straightened up later

just like a rose dies hugging itself

fragrances will fly away somehow, this hearth does not go anywhere.

helmets wearing rusty ihrams are walking up to all the beautiful voices

when the children who welcome a head of state are cold

I hid my bleeding side in the garden of my life that has become autumn, too.

 

I will not pay my tithe.

withstand, trustees cannot seize the sky

every pain got the taste of is a sharpening stone of patience

this resistance does not go anyplace

I'm burying myself in a pink sorrow

I'm afraid of a child's shadow passing through the cemetery

magnifying the letters of my voice i call out like a mehter company

a torn curtain is falling on the street

I'm washing my rotten voice with the rain.

 

let's not walk together, so they think we are crowded.

 

what will I keep secret from myself

my eye twitching does not stop, sulfur has thinned the mirror

the sea is out, and marble has worn the rope out

like ostentatious corpses, another importation has infected every berry i picked.

the mind of the seeds is dulled.

on my tongue words are in need of being translated

 

now I'm like a lazy joke

 

let's break up, and let this loneliness remain in the castle.

 

Translated By Baki Yiğit

 

METIN TURAN

 

METIN TURAN: He was born in 1966 in Kağızman (Kars-Turkey). He studied technical education, health and economics. His first tale was published in 1981.Turan attended numerous international scientific and artistic meetings in Germany, Romania, Kazakhstan, Macedonia, Syria, Bulgaria, Moldova, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, TRNC, Russia, Nakhichevan, Italy, South Korea, Poland and Turkey. He concentrated his work in the field of folk literature. In 1995, he was honored with the Turkish Folklore Service Award of Folklore Research Institution. He was the folklorist who won this award at the youngest age so far. Metin Turan is the president of KIBATEK (Cyprus, Balkans, Eurasian Turkish Literatures Institution) and Folklore Researchers Foundation. In 2003, he won the first prize “Çalıkalı Spring Festival Turkish World” (in the Republic of Macedonia) and “2004 Ruşen Hakkı Poetry Award”. His poems were translated into Polish, German, Arabic, Bulgarian, Persian, English, Korean, Macedonian, Romanian, Russian, Kurdish, Armenian, Uzbek, Ukrainian and Greek. In addition, his book “KÖROĞLU” was translated into Albanian and Serbian and published in these countries. In 2005 and 2006 he briefly taught Turkish Literature courses and conferences at Kiev National University and between 2007-2011, he gave lectures in folk literature at Yıldız Technical University/Faculty of Arts and Sciences as an academician. Metin Turan took part in the regulatory committee of "History Foundation (Tarih Vakfı)" and "Pertev Naili Boratav Archive".

In 1997-98, he worked in the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Turkey; Culture and Art Broadcast Advisory Board and Folk Culture Broadcast Advisory Board. Also, he was a member of the editorial board of “Türk Dünyası” magazine. He is the publishing coordinator of FOLKLOR/EDEBİYAT magazine whose contents are folklore, anthropology, sociology, history, music and literature, and has been published since 1994. In addition, he is the publishing director of KIBATEK (Cyprus, Balkans, Eurasian, Turkish Literatures Institution), which started its activities in 1998, and TURNALAR, an international translation and literary magazine.