ORHAN ALKAYA
(1958)

ALLA TURCA

i could see you. on your lips were sticky words and you were insensitive
toward the cedar trees. you were looting the sea minarets and then leaving
them behind; the mother-of-pearl shells were hurting.

in your beach bags a bit of Webster, eccentric! Marquez and
Ulysses never to be read...

as if Poseidon would come out of the waters. excitement in your
flip-flops, blood in your napless eyes.

in your gin-induced comas you were dragging by the hair a poor old man
enamored of himself.

Translated by Suat Karantay

 

Orhan Alkaya (1958, Istanbul) finished elementary, middle and high school in Istanbul. He studied law at Istanbul University and media at Marmara University. He got involved with theatre in 1972 and worked as an actor at the Istanbul City Theatres. He was fired after the 1980, September 12th military coup. He has worked as an encyclopedia writer, journalist, editor and consultant. He has also written movie and theatre critiques in daily newspapers. A poet of the 1980’s generation, he is one of the founders of the journal Şiir Atı. His first poems were published in the journal Yarın (1982) and since have appeared in journals like Üç Çiçek, Gösteri, Varlık and Sombahar. He gives importance to political discourse and focuses on recent history. From a socialist viewpoint, he creates poetry with strong images referring to a variety of sources. His poetry books: Parçalanmış Divan/Shattered Divan (1990), A! Etika/Ah! Etika (1991), Yenilgiler Tarihi 1/The History of Defeats 1 (1994), Erken Sözler/Premature Words (1999) and Tuz Günleri/Salt Days (2001).