GUADANYA - XIX (poetry)

GUADANYA - XIX

Now, I can understand you are the sister of Rimbaud

Now, I can understand that many destroyed gardens should be considered yours

At the train stations, in the empty boats, we will spend the frost of the night.

We are going to spend it, aren’t we?..

Don’t touch the kettle, the tea is being steeped.

Beyond your eyes, all become sooty

In your blood, one thousand one types of earthly substance

We are going to get warmer, aren’t we?..

No, we do not belong to another world…

But we came from another world, that is right…

Many thinkers call it the third world

We are going to keep quiet, aren’t we?..

We didn’t ask for “one official ticket to the world” at the station.

We didn’t say “let’s get off here and get on another train.”

Your arms are long, same as they were yesterday

We are going to be the one, aren’t we?..

One, unity of the universe, everything is in one

One, you are the master of that world

You didn’t treat me bad under your rule

We are going to continue the same, aren’t we?..

I accumulated your voice in the cells, full of moss

I inscribed your name on the gates of the sand castles

They were melting, as we are in the first world, melting

We are going to return, aren’t we?..

Aey the girl, the one lost in that ocean

You will win with our silent tears

While scattering all our passion to the soil

We are going to be lighter, aren’t we?..

Aey pashas, effendis and the masters of the world

Do not destroy our garden

We call it a rose garden but it has thorns too

We are going to fight till the end, aren’t we?..

We are the poets of boondocks, let’s admit this before everything

These expensive pens do not fit into our hands, we should sing

to the bugs and grasses all together

Let the sky open up, let the rain become complete

We are going to sing it, aren’t we?..

Stones have soul, sky has soul too

When we hear, what they hide, what they disclose

The entire universe will become a scene of craziness

We are going to play, aren’t we?..

When will you get on the boat…

After leaving that ancient boat at the pier

Then we will sail through the infinity of the horizon

We are going to look at the future only, aren’t we?..

But you are crying, I am crying

Tell me, which disaster that we have seen earlier than it happened

No, this is possible, you are wrong, this is possible

We are going to be comrades, aren’t we?..

Let’s become a tamada* before everything

In an evening of Tbilisi, in a house

Let’s have some guests, a few of them are poets

We are going to serve raki** too, aren’t we?..

You are crying again, string of my heart, don’t cry

We did not come to this world more than once but

We can still die more than once in this world

We are going to die too, aren’t we?

And this poem, in the Yellow River… I say this poem, in the Oka River,

In the Caspian Sea, it will sink and resurrect, after we disappear

What will it tell to the Turkmen boatman

We are going to be completely silenced, aren’t we?..

Written by Ulaş Başar Gezgin, 2002

Translated to English by Ali Riza Arican / 30 08 2011

* the toastmaster at a Georgian Supra (feast) or at a Russian wedding

** Turkish alcoholic beverage

Gezgin, U.B. (2017). Yağmur Sonrası/ After Rain / После дождя / Diğer Dillerdeki Gezgin Şiirleri: Rusça, İngilizce, Tayca, Azerbaycanca, Vietnamca, İspanyolca ve Japonca [Gezgin’s Poetry in Other Languages: Russian, English, Thai, Azerbaijani, Vietnamese, Spanish and Japanese].

POETRY BOOKS IN ENGLISH AND OTHER LANGUAGES / İNGİLİZCE VE DİĞER DİLLERDE ŞİİR KİTAPLARI 1. Gezgin, U.B. (2017). Yağmur Sonrası/ After Rain / После дождя / Diğer Dillerdeki Gezgin Şiirleri: Rusça, İngilizce, Tayca, Azerbaycanca, Vietnamca, İspanyolca ve Japonca [Gezgin’s Poetry in Other Languages: Russian, English, Thai, Azerbaijani, Vietnamese, Spanish and Japanese]. 2. Gezgin, U.B. (2017). You, I and Our Son - Poems of Peace, Longing and Love from Vietnam 3. Gezgin, U.B. (2017). For Those Who Will Sail Across The Oceans: An Explorer’s Vietnam Poems. 4. Gezgin, U. B. (2007). On a Tablet – English Poems by Ulas Basar Gezgin. Lulu.