Yavuz Özdem (Turkey)
Yavuz Özdem was born in 1956, Turkey. Özdem’s poetry has appeared in numerous periodicals in Turkey over a period of four decades, and been translated into Englısh, French, Spanish, Italian, Azerbaijan, Romanian, Bulgarian, Arabic, Kurdish , Hebrew and featured in many books, magazines and anthologies of festivals the poet attended.
Translating: Emre Karacaoğlu
BABY YAĞIZ
My daughter became a mother. The maiden
Milk streamed out
Streamed thrice
I saw my very own eye
Saw it in the milk
Baby Yağız, I uttered, Baby Yağız
You suckled. Your maiden mouth is warm now, I assume
As warm as a bird nest
Your slumbers are to fly off from there
It is where your cries are going to feed you
Welcome, Baby Yağız, welcome
I uttered that Thrice
Milk was between the three of us
Between the three of us
I saw my very own eye.
A PAIR OF CRUTCHES
My wife’s foot was broken. We were the last ones
to be deplaned. With a lift.
Everybody was gone,
Everybody had gone off with their suitcases.
A terminal full of loneliness
And our good old green suitcase
and, as if brought together by a novice photographer,
rests a pair of crutches
in the middle of the moving walkway.
We feel an unintended affinity
A pair of crutches becomes ours
This is a joy to be grasped.
THE WAY
This poem was written on 1 May 2009
I walked towards home
I looked at the workers’ sky
With whatever blue words I found
Neither the dynamite language of the ruling
Or my weariness from other daytimes
Nor the pain of distant news
Could spoil this purity
I, too, shouted
With my mind’s voice
– You
Deserved to be yourself
I marched on
I shouted.
