ATAOL BEHRAMOGLU
(1942)

THERE'S SOMETHING I HAVE LEARNED FROM WHAT I'VE LlVED

There's something I have learned from what I've lived:
lf you're to live something, live it to its fullest 
Your beloved should fall exhausted from your kisses 
You should fall exhausted from smelling a flower

One can watch the sky for hours 
Can for hours watch the sea, a bird, a child 
To live on earth is to mingle with it 
Growing roots that cannot be eradicated

When you hug a friend you should hug him vigorously 
You should fight with all your muscles, body, passion
And once you stretch out on the hot sand 
You should rest like a grain of sand, a leaf, a stone

One should listen to all the beautiful music on earth 
So as to fill all his being with sounds and songs 
One should dive into life as if 
Diving from a rock into an emerald sea

Distant lands should lure you, people you do not know 
You should burn with desire to read all the books, to know all the lives 
You should not exchange for anything the pleasure of drinking a glass of water 
All the joys should fill you with the yearning to live

And you should live grief also, with honor, with all your being 
For grief also, like joy, matures a person 
Your blood should mingle with the great circulation of life 
In your veins must circulate the eternal fresh blood of life

There is something I have learned from what I've lived: 
If you're to live, live big, as if you are mingling with the rivers, the sky, the whole universe 
For what we call a life span is a gift to life 
And life is a gift to mankind

LOVE IS FOR TWO

The wind changes direction 
Suddenly the leaves fade 
The boat at sea loses its way 
Searches for a port in vain 
The smile of a stranger 
Has stolen your beloved from you 
The poison accumulating inside you 
Will kill itself only 
It is death  which is lived alone 
Love is for two

Not a single trace is left 
From nightlong lovemakings 
Thousands of years away is 
The skin you've touched a thousand times 
The poems you could have written 
Are written and done with 
It is death which is lived alone 
Love is for two

No consolation to you 
Are the songs you know 
Pain is unchained 
Waters flow backwards 
Even if you draw your love like a dagger 
It serves only to kill it 
The wayward bird of love 
Has flown away with no warning 
It is death which is lived alone 
Love is for two

You're simply a lost song 
Consumed and degraded 
A child weeps in your dreams 
As the night brushes against the windows 
For no butterfly 
Lives its love alone 
No insect is alone 
No bird is alone when in love 
It is death which is lived alone 
Love is for two

translated by Suat Karantay

Ataol Behramoğlu [April 13, 1942 Çatalca near Istanbul].Is a prominent Turkish poet, translator and author. Behramoğlu is graduated in Russian Language and Literature at Ankara University. In 1970 he published Halkın Dostları review with Ismet Özel. Actually, during this period Ataol Behramoğlu purified his poetry by leaving out unsophisticated certainty and juvenile didacticism. He spent part of his life in exile in Paris and Moscow. He was arrested and sentenced to hard labour as a member of the Turkish Peace Association in 1982, and subsequently went into exile in France where he studied, worked and lived until 1989, when he was acquitted in Turkey. In 1982, also, he won the International Prize of Lotus magazine. His later poems evidence a simpler, more direct style. His Epic of Moustapha Suphi (1987/88) was the first play in Turkish staged at the 1989 Avignon Theatre Festival. He was the president of the Turkish Writers Syndicate between 1995-1999, and has been the literary and political critic on staff of the Cumhuriyet daily since 1995. He is the Associate professor and Chairman of the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the Istanbul University. In 2003 he was awarded The Great Prize of Poetry 2003 by Turkish International P.E.N.