TURGUT UYAR
(1927-1985)

IT'S LIKE THIS

It's me, one of your sinful slaves, my God...
Of prayers I know just "He is God the One,"
Only saying thank you Lord's been lasting.
In Ramadan I never keep to fasting,
But of passions unsuffered I know none.
It's me, one of your sinful slaves, my God!...

On earth your slaves like me are many God!..
If you don't know this let me tell you so.
They forgot you, needing love and bread,
The meal of yesterday gone from their heads.
What have we eaten that it shouldn't go?
On earth your slaves like me are many God!...

Don't take offense at what I write, my God!...
The angels will never say these things to you
The world you created's not the same
Since humankind has meddled in the game.
And if that doesn't please you what's to do?
Don't take offense at what I write, my God!...

Beg pardon, let me ask you something, God!..
The mosques are full of girls five times a day,
Innocent girls they are, white veils, white skin...
Just one look at them can do me in,
Is there not one who steals your heart away?
Beg pardon, let me ask you something, God...

So this is how the people are, my God!...
Richer or poorer as the years go by...
You are yet our endless mystery
And though you know us, you're still alterity
So long as we are troubled, weep and cry.
So this is how the people are, my God!...

Translated by Walter G. Andrews

TRIAD OF SEA-BLUES REDUCED TO ONE

On a day of deceit and subterfuge: vile, not properly lived
A day eyeless, earless, handless, footless, truncated
All my deficiencies, blanks, confusions, piled high on high
Adventures that have befallen me, these many thousand years ?
The systems, the people, the deaths piled on high

So many suns, so many water-snakes, so many plans
Of a sudden the blue reminds me of someone
Of a sudden I think of the moulh of a fish
And I feel cool

I have thought of three places for you and me,
One by Ihe sunflowers, one at thirly and one -- do not ask
Do not ask me now I may tell you myself someday
When I am braver more: of a craftsman then I might tell you
First let us brighten a little this angry darkness
Let us build cities resembling the ones of today
Let us start a new the sesame seeds the loaves of bread
The going overseas the falling in love
Let us go and return
Perhaps that sound that drop those soft beds that green perhaps
I can break rocks I can mix mortar I can pave roads
We may be happy Iet us go and return
I will not yield I can cursh stones mix mortar
And you have hair like a waterfall no matter what

Translated by Nermin Menemencioglu



That Village Still in Its Dream

One day in the mountains ofArsiyan in Heybet
My horse was tired and I was exhausted.
It was a stormy afternoon with lightnlng.
I reined in my horse and in the rain
went down into Banarhev village...

Just me and the village headman in his mom, two strangers,
we settled down as though we had known each other
for years, drank tea, conversed.
The wolves and the birds and the clouds were far away,
and quietly and in secret I enjoyed
being alive, being a man...

If a woman's voice had interrupted
I would have felt strange.
In the darkness I heard distant,
distant sounds, that you wouldn't believe,
I went to bed, pulled up the quilt,
in Banarhev village, in the headman's room
I slept till morning
with my dreams and people at my bedhead.

There was a feeling of warmth there.
When I went I knew nothing had changed.
Let all the waters with their trout rejoice.

That village still in its dream.

Translated by Richard McKane