AHMET OKTAY  
(1933)

A BRlEF MOMENT OF HAPPlNESS

The moth conversing with the lamp light,
the sea has long leaked under the door,
is now intoxicated in the porch. It's only
a moment: the kind of happiness that comes
after the rain pouring through the vine;
in this mortal fief. While you reach
to your glass, your wife says, "I saw death in your
cup this morning". Ah, no shore
can defeat time,
still alive, as alive as ever
is the pain of fire. The sinking day
still distills a vision,
whichever florist you stop by
spreads upon you the smell of graveyard;
when you think you're safe you're closer.
the beach wets your feet, yet
the night is still full of the howls of
the flood. The eyes of the tortured
is no dream, no dream. You lived
like a summer's end: the bus stops under open fire,
you have born the taste of the water from the well
in your mouth since yesterday; and strolling inside you
is the gloomy voice of a Koran night.
It's only a moment: in this fight
you never know if it's the past
burning out the future. You put the glass down,
hold your wife by the hand; "History
you say--is irresistible. And everything hints death
in a time of defeat".

You blow out the lamp.

Translated by Sehnaz Tahir

 

FlRST WORDS OF SADNESS

Old lovers! The rose gardens
I spent my nights in. All I wrote
and all I said, I did to unveil
the secret
                                with a new
secret.  
        --Why does the road
lead in three directions:
forward, backward and to the side ?-
asked the child
on black days
               when we lose
even our own image
               in the mirror.  

You who
remembers me
                  less
than a rainy day:
               says Attar:
"How can a stray soul
answer your questiod"  

Who shed each
                     other
like leaves! Is that Per Gynt
or an onion! Is there ever a snowy
day that does not dream
of a blooming night!

Twin meanings! "Twin
           Destinied"
How the marks
of a homecoming and departure intermingle
and the rose rotting on the ground
is a sign of life.  

I, too, soaked myself for years
in the ink of sorrow,
thinking I would ripen.
In my
         shaking
hand the pen borrowed from Sontag
and the pain it leaks:
in or out
"all journeys were made
to write and only write".  

Old lovers! The first
and sad words
of a conversation that starts
             with death.  

Translated by Sehnaz Tahir

 

Ahmet Oktay was born in Ankara in 1933 and started writing in his early years. His first poem was published in the Gerçek periodical in 1949-50. He played an active role in the founding of Mavi periodical which was seen as a pioneer of the Second New Movement. In 1961 he started his journalism career as ‘parliament correspondent’ for Yeni Istanbul newspaper. Ahmet Oktay took office in TRT between 1965 and 1982. After leaving his job there he worked at Milliyet newspaper as editor in chief until 1993. Since then he has fully dedicated himself to his writing. Oktay has won many awards: The Yeditepe Poetry Award for Her Yüz Bir Öykü Yazar/Every Face Writes a Story in 1965, the Necatigil Poetry Award for Yol Üstündeki Semender/The Salamander on the Road in 1987, the Writers Union of Turkey Poet of the Year Award for Ağıtlar ve Övgüler/Elegy and Praise in 1991, and the Akdeniz Altın Portakal Poetry Award for Hayalete Övgü/In Praise of the Ghost in 2002.