Monday, July 7, 2008

Derya Önder

Derya Önder is a poet, editor and publisher from Turkey. Read one of her poems:

DENİAL

We are on the verge of the night that is approaching, whirling and whirling

At the edge of the bridge composed of the murmurs uttered when we are delirious

How is it possible to narrate why all these injuries occur, without arms and weapons

How is it possible to explain this depthlessness causing the flower to fade

Life is a ball of silk thread, multicoloured

Life is all the sad poppies standing still under the rainbow

The mystery in how a man falls in love with a woman silently

How the magic is unveiled in the silent love of a woman

I am gathering all the rain drops, all the downpours in the towns

that are piled together

Gathering the suns in the vast blues, our hands so skinny

The piercing pain of all the incomplete loves, carried away,

in whatever age one is

Ask me, I will tell how many stars there are, if possible,

All rolling down in the night, from the darkness, into the light

Our mouths, full of foam, love in our mouths, chewed and spit out

Welcome’s, goodmorning’s, how are you’s all chewed and spit out

This is not how it goes, I know, impossible to proceed, remaining thus behind

Thin ropes stretched between us, ponds of tear drops rolling down in thin lines

How can the lovers ordered to go away, and all those unreachable Springs be narrated

Better would it be you and me as the only audience, how crowded are the spectators

Watching the despair, as if one crosses a garden full of pebbles, rocks, stones

Stabbing one, piercing needles into the body in full length

And then, watching how one suffers, this unmatched defeat, that is unique

We are approaching turning round and round, remaining in the night

That is why we still are where we are, the abscissa, zero and all, zero is the ordinate

No wings have I, stretched out, not even a revenge, not taken at all

No harm done in asking you for the last time, I know

No harm done for certain women

If they remain out of their shells then they won’t be in despair

No pain in my soul, dry are my eyes, and if despair

Does not roam around me...then I am well, better than anyone....

Our mouths, full of foam, why is all this foam for

This night, which season does it belong to, and who says ‘you’ to you

Being involved in life, falling in love, into despair, laughing and playing

Weeping for the one that has passed away, just laughing and playing

As I already said, if it is a dream, it is a dream, and if a lie, then it is a lie

As the lies told destroy the untold dreams

This is how we all are...how calm and withdrawn, how offended...and thirsty

Now we should rest beneath the trees grown by us

And, just today, is the exact time to talk about us, and about all those

Septembers, Octobers that will follow each other in time, the way you wish

The children too die as their childhoods do die

Open the rear window of the world and look around

That green field and grass made up of hopes

That carnation, that rose, that one, tell me what its name is

The one that falls upon the darkness, whirling and whirling

Is it this life that will take us out into the streets

I just laugh.


(Translated into English by Aysu ERDEN)

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