TE16 Turkish Delight

Ten Poems

frontward

And I woke against walls Today is going to be a beautiful day afterwards And the slanted-eyed women of the tents The fishes caught in our nets Like a tongue beating my mouth from their long caravans

they kept saying yes to all

Get up. Something bursts out of my big steps Beautiful and castellated, from the feet of a long and wet rose

And we walk in the burning hours Only water draws out. Get up, I say, you time of times! Migration is over! Your mouths clinging on the walls of the sun The world must have reached its destination. And I would wait there to collect the words of enlightenment You know how a mountain grows out of the sea I am kissing a woman from Diyarbakir on Frontward seems so nice. And our horses are sent to the world The courtyard gets partly illuminated in the morning under their hooves I will come if you want I would go to the plains where the sun remembers you I will learn the fields, the pugnacious farm labourers by heart If I return I must find you in the world’s skirts Be luminous, be beautiful, frontward.

(tr. Canan Marasligil) 211