Feyyaz Kayacan Fergar 

Translator

Perhaps I was a bit of a lizzard
in the wake of a ruined rain,
Perhaps I was the ugly side of the beautiful
or the handsomest of all things ugly.
If the sun's shadow could have run green,
I would have been the fastest viridian
sprinting in my mother's tadpole races.

Was I fork, was I knife, was my edge sharp enough;
out of a thousand excuses I moulded myself..
A restless boy, easy in his coming easy in his going
I was a fretting nest of festering fits
And perhaps I had trouble written on my every fingertip.

Burgled policemen blow their whistles,
Shrilling with fear I wet myself back and front.
The sky was a three-star colonel
to him I turned to air myself in my flashing nakedness.
A foul-mouthed, an unpleasant poet
I was once a crab in the war against the Muscovite.

I was easy, I was at home in both my eyes,
my colours were by a half-blind man seduced.
Well, village or town must not whimper when they fall,
I would be the one crying outside the city wall.
Chilldren were heard wailing for bread,
If an apple was needed I would appear one the scene.
Christmas night was a night of busy lament
To save myself I broke out of my ivory tower.

Who knows may be I was a feather in a bald man's hat,
a corn without colour or tassel to its name,
Sweet basil went sour because of me,
Mayhap I was a lusty yell blowing from who knows where,

I came either from next door or from Paradise
Mayhap I was a voice, soft or strong,
When perhapsness patrolled the streets
Maybe I was not even a perhaps.

The Mediterranean is in harmony with you
The stars sweat and you are sweating too
The same wet sparkle is on your nostrils
The noise of the motor boats does not stop
The dogs bark in the distance
A moment ago a child cried
A sheet is being shaken out from Fatma's window
Ali Dumdum is swearing for hours on end
The fishermen beat the sea
These sounds are like the earth swelling the silence
It is the silence garrulous of your geraniums

We lay on the veranda last night
the offshore summer breeze above us
My hands still smell of thyme
It was as though I didn't sleep with you
but was wandering the mountains

I learned from you how to write of the sea
The blue pencil is always in my hand
Like a fishing boat goes out on a trip
my teacher wife goes to school
I open out behind her
tracing a north wind in my exercise book
There is an island that is just shearwaters
it turns and turns in my head
The days I've lived with you
became a silver circle
when your sun touched my life

I found at last that smugglers' cave
as you dazzled my eyes open
Death is perhaps like washing
in those dark waters stolen from you,
greener than seaweed when still,
but blue after blue soaring with every fathom
I thought my losses, my débris, my alcoholic works
all belonged to this flat world
How was I to know I was on the peak of my happiness
I understood when I went out with you
You know those ancient Greek horses
with their curly manes
the trees with their projections are like them
when the day turns to evening
The Balan Peaks march
companies of souls march
towards the wholeness of beauty

My woman
you are in harmony with the Mediterranean