“On the Tip of Her Voice a Library Alive” -Six poems by Gonca Özmen translated by Neil P. Doherty

Previously published in The Dreaming Machine n. 7, on 1 December 2020.

Blackened

Look in my chest this rain has slumbered
And from my breasts Ada has drunk
My stomach it has swollen then fallen
In front of the blaze I have gone and stood
From staring at some surging emotion I have returned
Eye blackened dreams torn everything worn
My head bowed, my words forlorn, my struggle almost cold
In the meadows I have stretched out and dried off

Were you, all desirous, to slightly so slightly open it
And wade in haste across a thousand rivers
The sheets you came in would hold traces of my tiredness

From “Bile İsteye” (“Pointedly, Purposefully”)

Kara

Bak bu yağmurun göğsümde uyumuşluğu var
Adanın süt içmişliği var memelerimden
Karnımın şişip şişip inmişliği var
Gidip bir yangının önünde durmuşluğum var
Öyle gözü kara, düşü yırtık, eskisi çok
Kabaran bir duyguya bakmaktan dönmüşlüğüm var
Eğik başım öyle, sözüm perişan, kavgam ılık
Uzanıp da kırlara kurumuşluğum var

Aralasan şimdi aralasan öyle iştahlı
Geliversen bin dereden
Geldiğin çarşaflarda yorgunluğum var

Finer than Thread

we have lost says Zeynep, we have lost
On the tip of her voice some spurious foam
On the tip of her voice a library alive

Out of the abyss – her voice
Out of sorrow – her voice
Out of frost – her voice

On the tip of our voice some saintly tomb
On the tip of our voice the old fable of imagination

Out of the depths- our voices
Out of ember- our voices
Finer than thread-our voices

Mornings as rushed as tea that goes undrunk
Yet somehow there’s always a taste of bitter apple, winged ants
Our rooms, our breaths, our misdeeds are one

At times the world falls into disfavour in my eyes

From “Bile İsteye” (“Pointedly, Purposefully”)

İplikten İnce

biz kaybettik diyor Zeynep, biz kaybettik
Sesinin ucunda yalanası bir köpük
Sesinin ucunda bir diri kütüphane

Dipten – sesi
Kederden – sesi
Ayazdan – sesi

Sesimizin ucunda uzun bir yatır
Sesimizin ucunda eski hayal söylencesi

Derinden – seslerimiz
Kordan – seslerimiz
İplikten ince- seslerimiz

Sabahları içilmemiş çaylar kadar telaşlı
Nasılsa hep bir acı elma tadı, kanatlı karıncalar
Odalarımız bir, soluklarımız, suçlarımız

Dünya bazen düşüyor gözümden

The Moon

to the one with the mineral eyes

I spoke of these- not to you- but to a woman with a starred forehead
Once upon a time we were reciprocal we were symmetrical
Her words we untangled they were the joints of my knees
We even ripened as two cherries on one branch
We lay down to we awoke from sweaty dreams a tomb in our voice
We let our blood flow from here and there
We even -though you won’t believe it- appeared in court
The Verdict on Behalf of the Turkish People:
Let your existence be no gift to anything at all

I heard of these, not from you, but from a woman of much spice
We were as warm to each other as vests just stripped off.

III

I had this squinting woman over there read these, not you
We even stood side by side to form a line of verse
As resentful as cats who’d spilled milk
While in groans and grumbles we licked our wounds
We were even known to haunt a forest

At night we were neighbouring leaves, though you won’t believe it
In ourselves we were an under vine, a thrill in the arbour, a fence of mourning,
A hole in tights, a broken off button, a ripped trouser leg
In ourselves we were the fate of a never opened garden
The consistency of tart apples, though you won’t believe it

More truth in our huddling in ourselves than you standing in yours.

From “Bile İsteye” (“Pointedly, Purposefully”)

“gözleri maden”e

Ben bunları -sizinle değil- alnı akıtmalı bir kadınla söyleşmiştim
İşteştik bir zaman birbirimize bakışımlıydık
Onun sözleri çözdüydük dizlerimin bağıydı
Bir dalda iki kiraz olmuşluğumuz bile var
Terli rüyalara yatmış kalkmıştık sesimizdeki yatırla
Kan akıtmıştık oramızdan buramızdan
Mahkemeye inanmazsınız çıkmışlığımız bile var
Türk Milleti Adına Karar:
Varlığınız armağan olmasın hiçbir şeylere

Ben bunları -sizden değil- baharatı çok bir kadından dinlemiştim
Az önce çıkarılmış atletler kadar ılıktık birbirimize

III

Ben bunları -size değil- ötedeki o şehla kadına okuttum
Yan yana durup bir dize olmuşluğumuz bile var
Sütünü dökmüş kediler kadar dargın
Gurultularla yalarken yaralarımızı
Bir ormana dadanmışlığımız bile var

Biz gecede inanmazsınız yakın yaprak
Biz bizde asma altı, çardak keyfi, yas çiti
Delik çorap, kopuk düğme, yırtık paça
Biz bizde açılmamış bahçenin yazgısı
Mayhoş elma kıvamı inanmazsınız

Bizim bizde kaldığımız sizin sizde durduğunuzdan esaslı

Shadow

At a yellowed patience a person stares sometimes
However human this yellowed patience may seem

A person sometimes goes to the olive groves
Feeds the horses, strokes the curtains

Sometimes it happens that a language dies
That an ant smiles happens too sometimes

A word goes and finds another
Into its shell a walnut retreats
An insect suddenly loses its voice

Evening in the garden secretly
So secretly in the garden
An eternity grows and grows

The world does not belong to us, but to the shadows

From “Bile İsteye” (“Pointedly, Purposefully”)

Gölge

Sarı bir sabıra bakar insan bazen
Sarı bir sabır ne kadar insansa

İnsan bazen zeytinlere gider
Atları doyurur, perdeyi eller

Bazen olur bir dilin de öldüğü
Karıncanın güldüğü bazen olur

Bir sözcük diğerini gider bulur
Kabuğuna çekilir ceviz
Bir böcek sesini birden unutur

Akşam gizliden arka bahçede
Arka bahçede gizliden
Bir sonsuz büyür durur

Bizim değil gölgelerindir dünya

Silent Perhaps

Bracing itself for night forest
Slowly strips off its green

In cloud mingles a bird’s dream

Again of rocks wind speaks
Wind tells of places it has seen

Perhaps I say this time words will flow
With the rain skin’s desire will be set free

Calls to prayer, deaths will mix their times up perhaps
And a child’s severed arm blooms somehow

Oh world how you withered and dwindled inside us

Endlessly a silt of words accrues at the

bottom of the lake

Endlessly each thing squanders its own voice

From “Belki Sessiz” (“Silent Perhaps”)

Belki Sessiz

Geceye hazırlanıyor orman
Yavaş yavaş soyunuyor yeşili

Bir kuşun bir buluta karışmış düşü

Rüzgâr yine kayalardan söz ediyor
Rüzgâr gezip gördüğü yerleri anlatıyor

Bu sefer akar belki sözcükler diyorum
Yağmurla boşanır tenin arzusu

Belki şaşırır vaktini ezanlar ve ölümler
Nasılsa çiçek açar bir çocuğun kesik kolu

Ey dünya, küçüldükçe küçüldün içimizde

Durmadan birikiyor söz balçığı

gölün dibinde

Durmadan sesini yitiriyor her şey

Wound

-because love fell silent-
Let us go to the bottom…the bottom of the well
Where there’s darkness, quiet and the water’s fear
And depths where no word can reach

As though I’d scattered myself over a canvas
I slipped into that bitter symphony
You are a tired whimper in my voice now

-because the dream perished-
Let us go away…. far away from love
Where there’s ash, memory and the dregs of death
And the untamed silence of the mountains

Yet do not forget
Every well lives its own loneliness
Every bird

greets the morning

with its own song

From “Kuytumda” (“In My Nook”)

Yara

-cunku aşk sustu-
Dibe inelim …kuyunun dibine…
Orda karanlık,sessizlik ve suyun korkusu
Ve suyun ulaşamadığı derinlik

Sanki bir tuvale dağıttım kendimi
O buruk senfoniye sızdırdım
Yorgun iniltisin artık sesimde

-çunku düş öldü-
Uzağa gidelim…aşkın uzağına…
Orda kül, anılar ve ölümün tortusu
Ve dağların yabanıl suskunluğu

Sen yine de unutma
Her kuyu kendi yalnızlığını yaşar
Her kuş

kendi sesiyle

karşılar sabahı

Gonca Özmen was born in Burdur, Southern Turkey in 1982. She published her first poem at the age of 15 and her first book was published when she was only 18. She studied English Language and Literature at the University of Istanbul, finishing her master’s degree in 2004. Subsequently she was awarded a Ph. D in 2016 for a thesis on “A Revision in Ekphrastic Poetry of Cubist Male Painters’ Representation of the Female Body”. She has published three books of poetry and many essays and critical articles on both Turkish and world poetry. In 2011 Shearsman published a selection from her first two books entitled “The Sea Within” translated by George Messo. Her second book “Belki Sessiz” “Perhaps Silent”) was translated into German by Monika Carbe and was published as “Vielleicht Lautlos”by Elif Verlag in September 2017. She has also won many awards for her poetry since she first began publishing. Only last month her 2019 collection “Bile İsteye” (“Pointedly,Purposefully”) was awarded the Yunus Nadi Award for Poetry, one of the oldest and most prestigious literary prizes in Turkey. She works as an IB teacher of Film Studies and The Theory of Knowledge in the Şişli Terakki School in Istanbul.

Photo Ada Aye Imamoglu.

Neil P. Doherty is a translator born in Dublin, Ireland in 1972 who has resided in Istanbul since 1995. He currently teaches in Bilgi University. He is a freelance translator of both Turkish and Irish poetry.

Cover image by photographer Sumana Mitra.