GUVEN TURAN
(1944)

WHEEL OF FORTUNE

This word shall remain rooted
in deepest blankness
till the next word is ushered in
to spell the pregnant apex of wholeness:
- an utterly white moon
ghosted by white nights

- an utteriy blank wind
in utterly pale augusts

- an utterly white dream
erased by nakedness

Magnify all this, add to it
increasingly, the starkness,
the lack of voice and smell
of all the things whose touch
leave our body deeply unmoved.

Everything lives in a spectrum of blankness
here, on the blurred lips of memory.


EXPECTATIONS

How far can I go
standing crucially still?
This question stalks my loving,
my meals, the signature
I put at the end of a letter.
What is stranded here as a day postponed
is what should have been lived long years ago.
I know the logic,
I know how to make today
tomorrow's dumb hostage.

Petty quarrels do not unveil life
and its great definitions,
whereas it is always the lull
that precedes the storm.


FORCE OF HABIT

Under his pillow
he leaves reminders from the night before.
The morning starts breezy and clear.
He strolls quietly about,
he is noiseless, he comes
to squat over his diary,
a mystery to him
and open book for others.

His enbries run through
a flight of pages, then comes
the renewal of night,
the coming again of dark sleep
weaving the deep sinews of sleeplessness.

Translated by Feyyaz Kayacan Fergar


Güven Turan was born in Gerze, Sinop in 1943. He studied English and American Literature at Ankara University and holds an MA degree in American Literature. He worked as an instructor at the same university, wrote programs for the “Voice of Turkey” which broadcasts for Turkish nationals living abroad as part of the Turkish Radio and Television Company, edited literary reviews, and was in the advertising business from 1976 to 1995. At the moment he works as consultant editor for Yapı Kredi Publications. His first poem was published in 1963 and since then he has published poetry, short stories, novels, art and literary critiques, and translations of English and American poets. Some of his poems and short stories have been translated into English and French. So far he has produced nine books of poetry, three novels, three books of essays and criticism, and a book of short stories. He has participated in the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa, Iowa City, USA; in the Cambridge seminars, Cambridge, UK and in the Voix de la Mediterranée, Lodéve, France.