> Levent Yilmaz, translated by Ünal Aytür

I

Nobody can stand anybody any longer: this language has become threadbare.
In my precipices no jujube trees grow now; the cherry too have split and dried.
Your eyes are black today why, yesterday two unripe grapes they were;
tomorrow will they be full ?
When have I arrived at this time called now,
What did I have with me: flax, needle, clear words,
and truths to be patched up ?
Was it a world in full I’d fallen into, I don’t recall; there are foggy memories
and years fast carbonised; but star constellations are always there;
the sky is clear and calm, some scattered clouds swim above;
a tie there’s now between me and the stone, it seems,
an unknown language has been spoken,
I’ve been bewitched.
Why does the world remain silent now ?

II

We are in a world that is slow to come to its place,
where word holds little sway,
days are short, years unbelievable;
how old am I, and in which dream,
if for a moment the world stopped turning,
would blood still be running ?

III

Moreover, in this part of space, "intercordial" travel is difficult,
distances grow long, customs become varied;
on this side, voices speak; in another region signs communicate;
and report has it that, at the furthest end,
behind the blank space full of emptiness, everything stands still;
in this densely populated place the soul has no place to live.

IV

What is going to happen tomorrow, what ?
The fire has jumped on to the vine; look, the calendar is burning,
time is becoming crystal.
I wish it rained, I wish it rained!
Nobody has heard, no one has come to help, it’s too late now...
I came a year later, twenty nine years after,
time has turned into diamond: may no water touch his heart.
Your hair is full of salt, shake it;
what are you gazing at ? Fear no dark lilies and water, never.
Why aren’t the sands of the glass falling ? What were the scales going to measure ?
It’s Saturday today,
if the wheel is broken, one cannot advance in space...