Üzeyir Lokman ÇAYCI, 1 july 2012
Some offal in a bottle
Eyes are as transparent
As glass
They wander off down
Like spiders
To the bottom of it
Until mired in hatred right up to your knees
Its no door
More like a cover covering love up
His path all coiled up didn't seem to lead
anywhere really
All on his own
He managed to scare
Roses as they were growing
In old Lowertown
Noisy trucks
Men armed with pistols
Looking so bourgeois
Fear's an obsession
In the eyes of a famished bird
Love is some torture
On Earth
Time is like
fear melting at the table;
Justice is all bleary-eyed
Equality's an artificial rose
In the hands of a wretched soul
Fraternity's some empty dream
To anyone who's poor
The legend of obscurity
Your hands are bloody now, from digging in
The fire's seismic activity
And tears are what matter's most of all
In matters of justice
Some offal in a bottle
Eyes are as transparent
As glass
They wander off down
Like spiders
To the bottom of it.
* Literally: jar
Üzeyir Lokman ÇAYCI
Mantes la Ville, 15.05.2001
Translated into English free verse
by Richard Vallance, © 2003, June
Üzeyir Lokman ÇAYCI, 1 july 2012
You live in your own inner city, which you bought in a
silent auction.
You were again unable to cancel your debts.
Under your blackening eyelids you try to feel certain
things.
Without noticing your withdrawal from self, you leave for
distant parts
by using your ropes of thought like a ski-lift.
Your shudders increase as you touch the numberless elements.
In your screams at the moment when you feel the jolts
from the echoes
of your words crossing the threshold of your thought,
you send birds fleeing before you. As you breathe, your
roses wither.
In your moments of madness, crystals fall from your roof.
As your field of thought shrinks, your city expands. You
exhaust yourself
from running down the streets and avenues.
As the lamps of your voltage machines alight upon your
nights,
your humans robotize themselves.
The toads in your dirty waters frighten even the crocodiles.
Your inner journey makes you grow older.
Your internal cries amplify themselves.
You manifest difficulties with forty paws.
The auxiliary cells of your laboratories do not give you
the opportunity to live any pleasurable moments.
While the fear indicator inside you slackens you through
and through, you
have not
even the possibility of speaking. With each movement of
the clock,
the seasons rip themselves out of your heart.
Your solitude traverses your spirit without cease.
by Üzeyir Lokman ÇAYCI
Mantes la Ville, 22.09.2002
Traduit par by Yakup YURT en français
French free verse translated into English free verse
by F.J. Bergmann
Naeem, 1 july 2012
Fall, as I begin to pray
It was hard until yesterday,
I feared what tomorrow,
might perhaps be.
Could be full of regrets,
or joyful as I see.
As I set for the great lark,
away I march from the dark.
Everything soon despairs
separates within layers.
Resting on the mud, I lay
it changes the whole, but today…
-Nr.
Üzeyir Lokman ÇAYCI, 1 july 2012
“Hard prohibitions are necessary in order to live systematically... Strength isn’t affected by being a woman... I must use my authority continuously, even though it may seem insensitive to others....” The eyes of the female administrator widened after she murmured these words to herself.
She told her secretary not to be disturbed and began typing on her computer. She was almost frantic with excitement over the things she wrote. Sometimes her eyes stayed fixed at one point and she was envisioning three dimentional fiction from the words.
Two hours passed. She put the last period on her article, which resembled a political party announcement or a syndicate bulletin and bore no feeling or empathy. She remembered to write her name, title and date at the end. After signing, she picked up the phone and said, “ The difficulties of the opposition against my authority will simply have to be understood."
Her talk, complete with gestures, was reflected upon behind the misty glass. A few minutes later, a white-haired worker entered the room after knocking. He held the letter bestowed upon him. With a trembling hand, he went down the back steps, and read the letter quickly. He took a deep breath after wiping his sweat from his forehead and thought about the negative aspects of being a foreigner in a strange country.
His anxiety continued at home that evening. Watching his children wanting to sit on his lap to get rid of their own day’s troubles doubled his pain. That night he had chest pains and was taken to the hospital by an ambulance, where he died.
His loved ones visited his body in the morgue. His wife wasn’t able to stop her tears while she tried to speak of the cold winds that had changed the direction of their lives. How could their children be greeted in the future if no one knew of their heritage?
The event was forgotten. A few months later, the woman in the same work place said, “Continued effectiveness requires judgement... It must be my duty to continue struggling with foreigners using the best psychological methods... My strength isn’t affected by being a woman.”
She began typing on her computer after murmuring these words to herself and told her secretary not to be disturbed. She was again excited over the things she wrote. She remembered to write her name, title and date below her letter after she put the last period. After signing “Traces from the beginnings of everything reach to the end; forgetting things from the past will make my job easier...”, she said and picked up the phone. Her talk was reflected upon behind the misty glass. She handed the letter to her worker who entered the room after knocking on the door. She stretched out, relaxed, as her worker was going down the back steps. The waiting began...
Her worker took a deep breath at first. Then he folded the letter into his pocket. Sirens sounded in his ears. He felt as if he had died. Nobody noticed the disturbance reflected in his family life as his feelings closed down. Sales advertisements at reduced prices were given more attention than human rights declaration on the walls.
by Üzeyir Lokman ÇAYCI
Translated by Fide ERKEN and by Anne PROULX
Paris, 20.12.1998
Üzeyir Lokman ÇAYCI, 1 july 2012
You can no longer warm your cold hands, nor offer them in friendship. You have time to look back only once to see the life of your friendship with the flowers, the pleasure you take in love, the light ignited in your heart of hearts.
It is most unfortunate, but there are those who decide your tomorrows. Perhaps the month of March will not return, and the feet of a child will not break the snow. The marks left by war will not longer retire in the schools after you. Books will speak of you. Throw me once more into the arms of my mother, before the bloody marks show, before the agonies. Bid adieu to the flowers, their breath cut off. The time narrows and suffering tramples on your sentiments.
You will never forget while memories sink into living hearts. Why do they wish to make war instead of leaving their fears and resentments? Have you ever though about what they want of you? It is their internal enemy that mobilizes them!
I know that you find yourself facing the folly of those who cannot hear themselves. I can do nothing! I cannot prevent the animosity that makes you a target of killing and sorrow. You are a tiny tot - I love you dearly! Tomorrow the poisons embedded in the recipes of those who seek cover for their fears and complaints will slacken...passions will surely cause hands to tremble while they design with blood as their ink. You can be sure of it my child!
If your starving mother falls on her tears at the table before she can eat a morsel of bread, do not forget to give her a smile, my child! At present, you see who smells like oil, under the menacings of war. Iraq vibrates before your windows, and old lives. I know that flowers do not live in the mouths of canons...war holds grief, not joy, in its foyers! Throw yourself once more into the arms of your mother before the blood flows, and the suffering.
by Uzeyir Lokman CAYCI
Mantes la Ville, 01.03.2003
Traduit par by Yakup YURT en français
French free verse translated into English free verse
by Joneve McCormick
Satish Verma, 1 july 2012
It was a freak accident of epithelium
under anaesthesia.
You place a window
on to a hollow brain.
The money makes the monkey out of you.
A green light
blocks the fish, your memory,
to swim in black thoughts.
The yellow rose burns
in your hand. It was beginning of
a domestic race. The nightmares will
take care of the sleep.
Satish Verma
Miraj Patel, 30 june 2012
If you ask me,
Where do i always dreamed about to be.?
I'd say,
Right next to you,
Holding your hands right beside you,
Just wanna stay in your arms, with you,
ohh baby i just wanna be with you, wanna be with you...
If you ask me,
How long do i wish to stay.?
I'd say,
Maybe forever is not enough,
Even when the times are rough,
Baby all i need is your trust,
Promise i stay with you, i be with you...
If you ask me,
What i wish to see every morning i open ma eyes.?
I'd say,
Its always you i dream about late at night,
Just wanna see your face as i open ma eyes,
Just wanna see your smile and i be alright,
Just wanna see you oou, i wanna see you oou...
If you ask me,
What do i miss in you the most.?
I don't know from where should i start,
Not enough words to express ma heart,
Baby i miss with every beat of ma heart,
Coz even when we miles apart,
No matter wherever you are,
You always in ma heart...
© Miraj Patel 2012
kay kareman, 30 june 2012
If you explore
find many thing more
That heart is tilted
Angel is you that true and sure
Everything i wanted
To maKe mah move
young lady n fissby
LooK so cool
Day and night i MaKe mah fool
To better the time
I learn you ba tool
Thousand you honey
Thousands of your mood
Its not so funny
Make me Kunfused
Many times i thinK to stand up
Try to free
self with a gun-shot
I grid my heart
Better Heart getting hurt
Than to hurt you
Than to love
You always in mind
That i find
Anywhere anygo
Anytime
The heart is tilted
Direction's you
Heart is tilted
where you make a groove
Lady you so amazing
Dont need a proof
Baby you so beautiful
Sexy n say hot
Just observe the fact
Dont be so intact
Its eventually ma heart got standby
Malfunctions and hang all the time
Ths is ma eruption
not just a fiction
you call idio
Right to the video
But it happens all the time
Its the hood
Come to ma wood
LiKe your emboidment
LiKe you should
Its ma wood
Its the hood
Ma heart is tilted
Over you
Eyes are moving
With your move
with your groove
Its ma move
Its tilted
Nice young lady
aNd lady is you...
Glenn McCrary, 30 june 2012
Rare was the vibe
To which we waltzed
And like plastic pillows
We fondled each others features
Petting each others’ egos
In a wistful manner
No texture of skin
Had ever tasted better
Glenn McCrary, 30 june 2012
The beat that composes
Summer’s zealous speech
Employed my bones with jubilees
A quaint taste laced
with pornographic oaths
Of which I abstain from forsaking
As in her caress I descend
Poetry
Prose
Photography
Graphics
Video poems
Postcards
Diary
Books
Handmade
