THE CITY

You said, "I will go to another land, I will go to another sea.
Another city shall be found better than this.
Each one of my endeavors is condemned by fate;
my heart lies buried like a corpse.
How long in this disintegration can the mind remain.
Wherever I turn my eyes, wherever I gaze,
I see here only the black ruins of my life
where I have spent so many years, and ruined and wrecked myself."

New places you shall never find, you'll not find other seas.
The city still shall follow you. You'll wander still
in the same streets, you'll roam in the same neighborhoods,
in these same houses you'll turn gray.
You'll always arrive at this same city.
Don't hope for somewhere else;
no ship for you exists, no road exists.
Just as you've ruined your life here, in this
small corner of earth, you've wrecked it now the whole world
through.

Constantine KAVAFY


KENT

"Başka diyarlara, başka denizlere giderim, dedin.
Bundan daha iyi bir kent vardır bir yerde nasıl olsa.
Sanki bir hükümle yazgılanmış bir çabam;
ve yüreğim sanki bir ceset gibi gömülmüş oraya.
Daha ne kadar çürüyüp yıkılacak böyle aklım?
Nereye çevirsem gözlerimi, nereye baksam burada
gördüğüm kara yıkıntılarıdır hayatımın yalnızca
yıllar yılı yıktığım ve heder ettiğim hayatımın."

Yeni ülkeler bulamayacaksın, bulamayacaksın yeni denizler.
Hep peşinde, izleyecek durmadan seni kent. Dolaşacaksın
aynı sokaklarda. Ve aynı mahallede yaşlanacaksın
ve burada, bu aynı evde ağaracak aklaşacak saçların.
Hep aynı kente varacaksın. Bir başka kent bekleme sakın,
ne bir gemi var, ne de bir yol sana.
Nasıl heder ettiysen hayatını bu köşecikte,
yıktın onu, işte yok ettin onu tüm yeryüzünde.


Constantino KAVAFIS


The "The City" in the original Greek.

Η Πόλις

Είπες• «Θα πάγω σ' άλλη γή, θα πάγω σ' άλλη θάλασσα,
Μια πόλις άλλη θα βρεθεί καλλίτερη από αυτή.
Κάθε προσπάθεια μου μια καταδίκη είναι γραφτή•
κ' είν' η καρδιά μου -- σαν νεκρός -- θαμένη.
Ο νους μου ως πότε μες στον μαρασμό αυτόν θα μένει.
Οπου το μάτι μου γυρίσω, όπου κι αν δω
ερείπια μαύρα της ζωής μου βλέπω εδώ,
που τόσα χρόνια πέρασα και ρήμαξα και χάλασα».

Καινούριους τόπους δεν θα βρεις, δεν θάβρεις άλλες θάλασσες.
Η πόλις θα σε ακολουθεί. Στους δρόμους θα γυρνάς
τους ίδιους. Και στες γειτονιές τες ίδιες θα γερνάς•
και μες στα ίδια σπίτια αυτά θ' ασπρίζεις.
Πάντα στην πόλι αυτή θα φθάνεις. Για τα αλλού -- μη ελπίζεις --
δεν έχει πλοίο για σε, δεν έχει οδό.
Ετσι που τη ζωή σου ρήμαξες εδώ
στην κώχη τούτη την μικρή, σ' όλην την γή την χάλασες.

Thank you so much Cyrano. Constantinos Kavafis is a great greek poet. I m so happy to read part of his poetry in here, and even happier to read it in greek as well..
a big thank you....

My pleasure, sophie. My sincere thanks is for your interest.

"For we sing, not to stand apart from people -- but to bring together people"

Yannis RITSOS

oh i m so glad to see that your interest and knowledge is not concerning only turkish poetry. and very proud to see those lines written here. thanks again

In that case, Lyndie, the lines below should make you cry! So, the next one might be a handkerchief-poem!

come, come again, whoever you are, come!
heathen, fire worshipper or idolatrous, come!
come even if you broke your penitence a hundred times,
ours is the portal of hope, come as you are.

gel, yine gel! ne olursan ol, yine gel!
ister kafir ol , ister putperest ol, ister mecusi ,
istersen yüz kere bozmuş ol tövbeni ...
yine gel! bizim dergahımız umutsuzluk kapısı değil;
umut kapısıdır. Yine gel..

MEVLANA

REMEMBRANCE

(To Ethel and Julius Rosenberg...)

Wish a couple of doves rise
Carnations smell piteously
This is an unmentionable thing
Suddenly comes to my mind

Sun was almost rising
You would get up usually
Perhaps you were still drowsy
Your night comes to my mind

Like the names of flowers I love
Like names of streets I love
Like the names of all my love
Your names come to my mind

That's why comfortable beds shame
That lethargy during the kiss
Joining across the wire fence
Your fingers come to my mind

I have seen so many loves, allies
Read heroes in history
Suiting well to age solemn, simple
Your manners come to my mind

Wish a couple of doves rise
Carnations smell piteously
This is an unforgettable thing
Inevitably comes to my mind

Melih Cevdet ANDAY


ANI

Bir çift güvercin havalansa
Yanık yanık koksa karanfil
Değil bu anılacak şey değil
Apansız geliyor aklıma

Nerdeyse gün doğacaktı
Herkes gibi kalkacaktınız
Belki daha uykunuz da vardı
Geceniz geliyor aklıma

Sevdiğim çiçek adları gibi
Sevdiğim sokak adları gibi
Bütün sevdiklerimin adları gibi
Adınız geliyor aklıma

Rahat döşeklerin utanması bundan
ÖpüşÃ¼rken o dalgınlık bundan
Tel örgünün deliğinde buluşan
Parmaklarınız geliyor aklıma

Nice aşklar arkadaşlıklar gördüm
Kahramanlıklar okudum tarihte
Çağımıza yakışan, vakur sade
Davranışınız geliyor aklıma

Bir çift güvercin havalansa
Yanık yanık koksa karanfil
Değil, unutulur şey değil
Çaresiz geliyor aklıma

thx cyrano

THE AUTOPSY

And so they found that the gold of the olive root had dripped in the re-
cesses of his heart.

And from the many times that he had lain awake by candlelight waiting
for the dawn, a strange heat had seized his entrails.

A little below the skin, the blue line of the horizon sharply painted. And
ample traces of blue throughout his blood.

The cries of birds which he had come to memorize in hours of great lonely
ness apparently spilled out all at once, so that it was impossible for
the knife to enter deeply.

Probably the intention sufficed for the evil

Which he met—it is obvious—in the terrifying posture of the innocent.
His eyes open, proud, the whole forest moving still on the unblem-
ished retina.

Nothing in the brain but a dead echo of the sky.

Only in the hollow of his left ear some light fine sand, as though in a shell.
Which means that often he had walked by the sea alone with the pain
of love and the roar of the wind.

As for those particles of fire on his groin, they show that he moved time
hours ahead whenever he embraced a woman.

We shall have early fruit this year.


Odysseus Elytis
(winner of the 1979 Nobel Prize for Literature)

WEDNESDAY, 8c

IF ONLY MOTHER you could see me: as I was born,
I departed. I was far too little - besides who
understands? - and far too many were the creeping
monsters with the lateral, slimy legs.

So, from the length of a life constructed with such
difficulty all that remains is a half-ruined door
and a lot of large decaying water anemones.
Therefrom I pass and proceed - who knows? - to a womb sweeter than my country.


Odysseus Elytis

Thank you very much, sophie, for your kind contribution. To be honest, this is the first time I have heard this poet, and you introduced, in a manner of speaking, Elytis to me. Thank you again.

And this poem is from Ritsos, my big passion, for you.

THE THIRD ONE

The three of them sat before the window looking at the sea.
One talked about the sea. The second listened. The third
neither spoke nor listened; he was deep in the sea; he floated.
Behind the window panes, his movements were slow, clear
in the thin pale blue. He was exploring a sunken ship.
He rang the dead bell for the watch; fine bubbles
rose bursting with a soft sound - suddenly,
"Did he drown?" asked one; the other said: "He drowned."
The third one looked at them helpless from the bottom of the sea,
the way one looks at drowned people.

Yannis RITSOS

This is my contribution for my another homeland…

"Kostas Karyotakis lived in the years after the First World War and expressed the pain of the lonely man, the pain of the melancholic spirit, with the most dramatic way.
From the depths of his soul he gave us his crying heart.
Until annihilation. Until Death..."


Tonight the moon...

Tonight the moon will fall upon
the strand, a heavy pearl.
And over me will play the mad
mad moonlight.

The ruby wave will shatter
at my feet, and scatter all the stars.
From my palms two doves
will have been born;

they'll rise -- two silver birds --,
be filled -- two cups -- with moonlight,
sprinkle moonlight on my shoulders,
on my hair.

The sea is molten gold.
I'll launch my dream to sail
upon a ca&idieresis;que. I'll tread a diamond
into gravel, glistening.

The encircling light will seem to pierce
my heart, a heavy pearl.
And I shall laugh. And then I'll weep... And there,
there's the moonlight!

Kostas Kariotakis

For more poetry of Kostas Kariotakis, this is the link:

http://users.otenet.gr/~lost/english

And this is for kardoula mou:

Down the Seashore

Watching an entire Sunset
As the colours were dying upon her eyes
Through the raving sounds of seashells
Through the marks of the wind on her body
She deeply understood
the way people set
like weak suns
like passing summers
Swallowing the pain
bearing no complain
for the coming darkness,
sacrifice.

Argyro Mantoglou

Thank you very much, Slavica, for your precious contribution. This poem is for you:

I'VE LEARNED SOME THINGS

I've learned some things from having lived:
If you're alive, experience one thing with all your power
Your beloved should be worn out from being kissed
And you should drop exhausted from the smelling of a flower

A person can gaze at the sky for hours
Can gaze for hours at a bird, a child, the sea
To live on the earth is to become part of it
To strike down roots that won't pull free

If you cling to anything, tightly hold a friend
Fight for something with every muscle, whole body, all your passion
And if you lay yourself for a time on the warm beach
Let yourself rest like a grain of sand, a leaf, a stone

To your utmost, listen to every beautiful song
As though filling all the self with sound and melody
One should plunge head-first into life
As one dives from a cliff into the emerald sea

Distant lands should draw you, people you don't know
To read every book, know other's lives, you should be burning
You shouldn't exchange for anything the pleasure of a glass of water
No matter how much the joy, your life should be filled with yearning

You should know sorrow, honorably, with all your being
Because the pains, like joys, make a person grow
Your blood should mingle in the great circulation of life
And in your veins life's endless fresh blood should flow

I've learned some things from having lived:
If you're alive, experience largely, merge with rivers, heavens, cosmos
For what we call living is a gift given to life
And life is a gift bestowed upon us

Ataol BEHRAMOĞLU


YAŞADIKLARIMDAN ÖĞRENDİĞİM BİRŞEY VAR

Yaşadıklarımdan öğrendiğim bir şey var:
Yaşadın mı, yoğunluğuna yaşayacaksın bir şeyi
Sevgilin bitkin kalmalı öpülmekten
Sen bitkin düşmelisin koklamaktan bir çiçeği

İnsan saatlerce bakabilir gökyüzüne
Denize saatlerce bakabilir, bir kuşa, bir çocuğa
Yaşamak yeryüzünde, onunla karışmaktır
Kopmaz kökler salmaktır oraya

Kucakladın mı sımsıkı kucaklayacaksın arkadaşını
Kavgaya tüm kaslarınla, gövdenle, tutkunla gireceksin
Ve uzandın mı bir kez sımsıcak kumlara
Bir kum tanesi gibi, bir yaprak gibi, bir taş gibi dinleneceksin

İnsan bütün güzel müzikleri dinlemeli alabildiğine
Hem de tüm benliği seslerle, ezgilerle dolarcasına
İnsan balıklama dalmalı içine hayatın
Bir kayadan zümrüt bir denize dalarcasına

Uzak ülkeler çekmeli seni, tanımadığın insanlar
Bütün kitapları okumak, bütün hayatları tanımak arzusuyla yanmalısın
Değişmemelisin hiç bir şeyle bir bardak su içmenin mutluluğunu
Fakat ne kadar sevinç varsa yaşamak özlemiyle dolmalısın

Ve kederi de yaşamalısın, namusluca, bütün benliğinle
Çünkü acılar da, sevinçler gibi olgunlaştırır insanı
Kanın karışmalı hayatın büyük dolaşımına
Dolaşmalı damarlarında hayatın sonsuz taze kanı

Yaşadıklarımdan öğrendiğim bir şey var:
Yaşadın mı büyük yaşayacaksın, ırmaklara,göğe,bütün evrene karışırcasına
Çünkü ömür dediğimiz şey, hayata sunulmuş bir armağandır
Ve hayat, sunulmuş bir armağandır insana

Oh, and this is for you, Cyrano… from your big passion, Ritsos:
Forgetfulness

The house with the wooden staircase and the orange trees,
facing the azure, big mountain. The countryside gently
walks around inside the rooms. The two mirrors
reflect the singing of the birds. Only
that in the middle of the bedroom lie abandoned
two fabric slippers for the old. So,
when the night falls, the dead visit the house again
in order to collect something of theirs left behind,
a scarf, a vest, a shirt, two socks
and then, possibly due to short memory or carelessness,
they take along something of ours. Next day,
the postman passes our door without stopping.

Giannis Ritsos

Oh thank you guys so much! I had never read the poems u sent me. I m trying to find them now, written in greek.

Cyrano? What about greek Tragedies? Have you ever read any of them? I bet you would be amazed!

Greek Tragedies? How can I forget Sophocles' tragedies? Could it be possible? Especially Antigone? My love and lover Antigone... who had revolted against the power of Creon,not having left her sister's body in the street.

And I had read the others- Oedipus Rex and Oedipus At Colonus.

I bought also the book called The Oedipus Cycle in English. But I haven't sadly read it yet.

Dear Sophie, the pleasure is mine

And one more poem for kardoula mou and arkadaşım...

In the garden the chrysanthemums were dying...

In the garden the chrysanthemums were dying
like desires when you came. Calmly
you laughed, like little white flowers.
Silent, I made a sweetest song
out of the darkness deep within me
and the petals sing it up above you.

Kostas Kariotakis

This poem I've got from a very special friend.
I have great pleasure to share it with you, my dear friends, poetry lovers.
And maybe someone (hmm... meaning Cyrano, actually) could help about finding Turkish translation?

NOSTALGIA by Kostas Karyotakis

(from the depth of good times our loves greet us bitterly...)

You're not in love, you say, and you don't remember.
And if your heart has filled and you shed the tears
that you couldn't shed like you did at first,
you're not in love and you don't remember, even though you cry.

Suddenly you'll see two blue eyes
- how long it's been!- that you caressed one night;
as though inside yourself you hear
an old unhappiness stirring and waking up.

These memories of time past
will begin their dance macabre;
and like then, your bitter tear
will well up on your eyelid and fall.

The eyes suspended - pale suns -
The light that thaws the frozen heart,
The dead loves that begin to stir,
The old sorrows that again ignite...

********************************

ΝΟΣΤΑΛΓΙΑ

(μεσ' από το βάθος των καλών καιρών, οι αγάπες μας πικρά μας χαιρετάνε

Δεν αγαπάς και δε θυμάσαι, λες.
Κι αν φούσκωσαν τα στήθη κι αν δακρύζεις
που δεν μπορείς να κλάψεις όπως πρώτα,
δεν αγαπάς και δε θυμάσαι, ας κλαις.

Ξάφνου θα ιδείς δυο μάτια γαλανά
-πόσος καιρός!- τα χάιδεψες μια νύχτα,
και σα ν' ακούς εντός σου να σαλεύει
μια συφορά παλιά και να ξυπνά.

Θα στήσουνε μακάβριο το χορό
Οι θύμησες στα περασμένα γύρω,
και θ' ανθίσει στο βλέφαρο σαν τότε
και θα πέσει το δάκρυ σου πικρό.

Τα μάτια που κρεμούν - ήλιοι χλωμοί-
το φως στο χιόνι της καρδιάς και λιώνει,
οι αγάπες που σαλεύουν πεθαμένες,
οι πρώτοι ξανά που άναψαν καημοί...

Sorry, Slavica, I couldn't find the translation of Noltalgia.
Now I would like to post, however, a poem from one of my favourites poets, Fernando Pessoa.


ALL LOVE LETTERS ARE RIDICULOUS

All love letters are
Ridiculous.
They wouldn't be love letters if they weren't
Ridiculous.

In my time I also wrote love letters
Equally, inevitably
Ridiculous.

But in fact
Only those who've never written
Love letters
Are
Ridiculous.

If I could go back
To when I wrote love letters
Without thinking how
Ridiculous.

The truth is that today
My memories
Of those love letters
Are that is
Ridiculous.

(All more-than-three-syllabe words,
Along with uncountable feelings,
Are naturally
Ridiculous.)

21 October 1935


BÃœTÃœN AŞK MEKTUPLARI


Bütün aşk mektupları
Gülünçtür.
Aşk mektubu olmazdı onlar eğer olmasalardı
Gülünç.

Ben de zamanında yazdım aşk mektupları,
Başkaları gibi,
Gülünç.

Aşk mektupları, eğer aşk varsa,
İster istemez
Gülünç.

Ama, her şey bir yana,
Asla aşk mektubu
Yazmamış olanlardır sadece
Gülünç.

Ah, yazdığım zamanlara geri dönsem
Farkında olmadan
Gülünç
Aşk mektupları...

Aslında bugün
Benim anılarımdır
Bu aşk mektuplarına dair
Gülünç
Olan.

(Vurgulanan bütün kelimeler,
Vurgulanan duygular gibi
Doğal olarak
Gülünç.)

Thanks a lot, Cyrano
This is really wanderful poem!
Can you tell us more about the author?
Or give us a link?

http://pintopc.home.cern.ch/pintopc/www/FPessoa/FPessoa.html

As She Passes

When I am sitting at the window,
Through the panes, which the snow blurs,
I see the lovely images, hers, as
She passes ... passes ... passes by ...

Over me grief has thrown its veil:-
Less a creature in this world
And one more angel in the sky.

When I am sitting at the window,
Through the panes, which the snow blurs,
I think I see the image, hers,
That's not now passing ... not passing by ...


(05.05.1902)

Love is Essential

Love is essential.
Sex, mere accident.
Can be equal
Or different.
A man's not an animal:
Is a flesh intelligent,
Although sometomes ill.


(05-04-1935)
Translated from Fernando Pessoa by J.Griffin.

SONET

Whether we write or speak or do but look

We are ever unapparent. What we are

Cannot be transfused into word or book,

Our soul from us is infinitely far.

However much we give our thoughts the will

To be our soul and gesture it abroad,

Our hearts are incommunicable still.

In what we show ourselves we are ignored.

The abyss from soul to soul cannot be bridged

By any skill of thought or trick of seeming.

Unto our very selves we are abridged

When we would utter to our thought our being.
We are our dreams of ourselves souls by gleams,
And each to each other dreams of others' dreams.

Enjoy!

IRONY OF FATE

Your voice is on my ears my desire…

Whispering our mezzo-love in a silent hesitate…

This must be the ‘irony of fate’

Although everything would be pleasant

Able to obliterate…..

You, who digested whatever huge separations…

Mine would be only an unnoticed part…

But I am petit my sweetheart...

For me it’s unliftibly hard…

An Angel Without Wings

Author: Elizabeth Ann Burkett

You must be an angel without wings
To put up with all of my bothersome things
My anger, my love, my sometimes weary heart
What others hated about me you love those parts
I look at you and see a creation so divine
To think you have captured this heart of mine
How could I not love you with all that I am
You are the steady I need for my trembling hand
So honest, true and caring you are
My night in shining armour or my shooting star
You simply must be an angel without wings!

IF THERE WERE NO TOMMOROW

Author: DR Meyst

I would tell you today
That you are the one that fills my life
Whose smile I cannot wait to see
Whose arms I long to have wrapped around me
Whose lips I live to kiss
Softly, passionately, in every way.

I would want you to know
That you make my heart skip a beat
You fill my soul with contentment
You brighten my dark skies
You fill my days and nights
With stars, hopes, and cascading dreams.

I would want you to see
How beautiful the world looks with your eyes through mine
Your eyes light up the sky
Your touch paints the Heavens
Your kiss creates amazing rainbows
Of beauty, sunshine, and life.

I would want you to understand
That I have always loved you
Before I knew there was you
Before our eyes ever met
Before I found in you
Happiness, completeness, and passion.

If there were no tomorrow
I would tell you
That you are the greatest gift in my life
Whose love I cherish above all else
You sustain me with
Your laughter, love, and friendship
Before there was no knowing
I'd tell you I love you infinitely, without boundaries, and beyond time

Thank you Ramayan for sharing these poems with us.

Ah ah...***daydreaming***

So so...

not so so...wonderful...

Mutlu Aşk Yoktur Ki Dünyada

Aslında hiçbir şey kâr değil insana
Ne gücü ne zayıf yanları ne de yüreği
Gölgesi bir haç gölgesidir kollarını açsa
Ve kırar göğsüne bastırırken sevdiği şeyi
Tuhaf bir ayrılıktır hayatı kapkara
Mutlu aşk yok ki dünyada

Hani giydirilmiş erler bir başka yazgıya
İşte o silahsız erlere benzer hayatı
Sabahları o yazgı için uyanmış olsalar da
Tükenmiştirler ve kararsızdırlar akşamları
Söyle yavrum şu sözleri sakın ağlama
Mutlu aşk yok ki dünyada

Güzel aşkım tatlı aşkım çıbanım derdim
Yaralı bir kuş gibi taşırım seni şuramda
Ve görmeden bakanlar şu halimize bizim
Süzdüğüm sözleri söylerler benden sonra
Ve her şey der demez ölür iri gözlerin uğruna
Mutlu aşk yok ki dünyada

Yaşamayı öğrenmek bizimçin geçti çoktan
Ağlasın gece içinde kalplerimiz yan yana
En küçük şarkıyı mutsuzluktur kurtaran
Her ürperiş borçlu baştan bir hayıflanmaya
Ve her kitar havası beslenir bir hıçkırıkla
Mutlu aşk yok ki dünyada

Acılara batmamış bir aşk söyle bana
Yıkmamış kıymamış olsun bir aşk söyle
Bir aşk söyle sarartıp soldurmamış ama
İnan ki senden artık değil yurt sevgisi de
Bir aşk yok ki paydos demiş göz yaşlarına
Mutlu aşk yok ki dünyada
Ama şu aşk ikimizin öyle de olsa.

LOUIS ARAGON

Çeviren: Cemal Süreya


THERE IS NO HAPPY LOVE

Man never truly possesses anything
Not his strength, not his weakness, not his heart
When he opens his arms
His shadow forms a cross
When he tries to embrace happiness
He crushes it
His life is a strange and painful divorce

There is no happy love

His life resembles those soulless soldiers
Who have been groomed for a different fate
Why should they rise in the morning
When nighttime finds them disarmed, uncertain
Say these words and hold back your tears

There is no happy love

My beautiful love, my dear love, my torn heart
I carry you in me like a wounded bird
Those who unknowingly watch us walk by
Repeat after me my words and sigh
They have already died in your bright eyes

There is no happy love

By the time we learn to live
It's already too late
Our hearts cry in unison at night
It takes many regrets to pay for a thrill

Many a misfortune for the simplest song
Many a tear for a guitar's melody

There is no happy love

There is no love which is not pain
There is no love which does not die
There is no love which does not fade
And none that is greater than your love for your country
There is no love which does not live from tears

There is no happy love
But it is our own love

LOUIS ARAGON

bliss u hav problems hea???

THE MONOGRAM (1971)
Odysseas Elytis

I'll mourn forever -do you hear me?- for you,
alone, in Paradise

IV

It's still early in this world, do you hear me
The monsters have not been tamed, do you hear me
My lost blood and the sharp, do you hear me
Knife
Like a ram racing in the heavens
Breaking the branches of the stars, do you hear me
It's me, do you hear me
I love you, do you hear me
Holding you and taking you and dressing you
In Ophelia's white wedding dress, do you hear me
Where are you leaving me, where are you going and who, do you hear me

Is holding your hand over the floods

The huge basins and the volcanic lavas
There will be one day, do you hear me
When they'll bury us, and after thousands of years
They'll turn us into precious stones, do you hear me
To crush on them the heartlessness, do you hear me
Of Man
And throw the thousand pieces

In the water one by one, do you hear me
I count my bitter pebbles, do you hear me
And time is a big church, do you hear me
Where once the figures
Of the Saints
Shed real tears, do you hear me
The bells tear in the sky, do you hear me
A deep passage for me to pass
The angels await with candles and eulogies
I'm not going anywhere, do you hear me
Either nobody or both of us together, do you hear me
This flower of the storm and, do you hear me
Of love
We cut it once and for all
And it cannot blossom otherwise, do you hear me
In another earth, in another star, do you hear me
The ground, the air that we touched,
Is no longer the same, do you hear me

And no gardener was happy in other times

From so much winter and north winds, do you hear me
Throw the flower, just us, do you hear me
In the middle of the ocean
By the power of love alone, do you hear me
We created a whole island, do you hear me
With caves and headlands and blossoming cliffs
Listen, listen
Who's talking to the water and who's crying -are you listening?
Who's searching for others, who's yelling - are you listening?
I'm the one who's yelling, I'm the one who's crying, do you hear me
I love you, I love you, do you hear me.

Dear Sophie,
Thank you for the poem. How did you know he is one of my favourites?
And this is for you:

Odysseas Elytis

"GIFT SILVER POEM"

I know that all this is worthless and that the language
I speak doesn't have an alphabet

Since the sun and the waves are a syllabic script
which can be deciphered only in the years of sorrow and exile

And the motherland a fresco with successive overlays
frankish or slavic which, should you try to restore,
you are immediately sent to prison and
held responsible

To a crowd of foreign Powers always through
the intervention of your own

As it happens for the disasters

But let's imagine that in an old days' threshing-floor
which might be in an apartment-complex children
are playing and whoever loses

Should, according to the rules, tell the others
and give them a truth

Then everyone ends up holding in his
hand a small

Gift, silver poem.

Translated by Marios Dikaiakos


“I LIVED THE BELOVED NAME...”

I lived the beloved name
In the shade of the aged olive tree
In the roaring of the lifelong sea

Those who stoned me live no longer
With their stones I built a fountain
To its brink green girls come
Their lips descend from the dawn
Their hair unwinds far into the future

Swallows come, infants of the wind
They drink, they fly, so that life goes on
The threat of the dream becomes a dream
Pain rounds the good cape
No voice is lost in the breast of the sky

O deathless sea, tell what you are whispering
I reach your morning mouth early
On the peak where your love appears
I see the will of the night spilling stars
The will of the day nipping the earth’s shoots

I saw a thousand wild lilies on the meadows of life
A thousand children in the true wind
Beautiful strong children who breathe out kindness
And know how to gaze at the deep horizons
When music raises the islands

I carved the beloved name
In the shade of the aged olive tree
In the roaring of the lifelong sea.

Translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard

Hey, girls! Do you want me falling in love with Elytis?
Thanks for amazing poems
And this is my contribution…

"Calendar of an Invisible April" by Odysseas Elytis

"The wind was wistling continuously, it was
getting darker, and that distant voice was
incessantly reaching my ears : "an entire life"...
"an entire life"...
On the opposite wall, the shadows of the
trees were playing cinema"

----------------


"It seems that somewhere people are celebrating;
although there are no houses or human beings
I can listen to guitars and other laughters which
are not nearby

Maybe far away, within the ashes of heavens
Andromeda, the Bear, or the Virgin...

I wonder; is loneliness the same, all over the
worlds ? "

----------------

"Almond-shaped, elongated eyes, lips; perfumes stemming
from a premature sky of great feminine delicacy
and fatal drunkeness.

I leant on my side -almost fell- onto the
hymns to the Virgin and the cold of spacious
gardens.

Prepared for the worst."


----------------


"FRIDAY, 10c

LATE MIDNIGHT my room is moving in the
neighborhood shining like an emerald.
Someone searches it, but truth eludes him
constantly. How to imagine that it is
placed lower

Much lower

That death too, has its own Red sea."


Translated by: Marios Dikaiakos

Dear Sophie, did we deserve now the whole "MONOGRAM"?

Sibel mou, it's a little bit long, but how could I resist fulfilling your wish huh?
My dear Bliss, I bet that you have already read this poem, probably more times than I have, but I think reading it again can only be a pleasure, right?

**this translation comes from a different source, thus you'll find some differences between the part of the poem i have published above and the same part in this version**

The Monogram – Odysseas Elytis

I.
Fate will turn elsewhere the lines
Of the palm, like a switchman
Time will consent for a moment

How otherwise, since men love each other

The sky will act out our innards
And innocence will strike the world
With the sharpness of the black of death.

II.
I mourn the sun and I mourn the years that come
Without us and I sing the others that have passed
If that is true

The bodies spoken to and the boats strumming sweetly
The guitars flickering underwater
The “believe me” and the “don’t” there
Once in the music, once in the air

The two little animals, our hands
That sought to climb secretly one on the other
The pot of baby’s breath through open yard gates
And the pieces of seas coming together
Behind the hedgerows, above the stone walls
The anemone that lay in your hand
The mauve trembled three times for three days above the waterfalls

If these are true I sing
The wooden beam and the square weaving
On the wall, the Mermaid with unbraided dress
The cat who watched us in the darkness

A child with incense and the red cross
The hour evening falls on the rocks’ inaccessibility
I mourn the garment that I touched and the world came to me

III.
Thus I speak for you and me

Because I love you and in love I know
How to enter like the Full Moon
From everywhere, for your small foot on the huge streets
How to pluck jasmine flowers – and I have the power
To blow and move you asleep
Through moonlight passages and the sea’s secret arcades
Hypnotized trees with silvering spiderwebs

The waves have heard of you
How you caress, how you kiss
How you say in a whisper the “what” and the “eh”
Around the neck around the bay
Always we the light and the shadow

Always you the little star and always I the dark boat
Always you the harbour and always I the beacon on the right
The wet dockwall and the gleam on the oars
High in the house with the vine arbours
The bound-up rosebushes, the water that feels cold
Always you the stone statue and always I the lengthening shadow
The half-closed window shutter you, I the wind that opens it
Because I love you and I love you
Always you the coin and I the adoration that cashes it.

So much for the night, so much for the roar in wind
So much for the droplet in the air, so much for the quietude
Around the despotic sea
Arch of the sky with the stars
So much for your least breath

That I have nothing more
Amid the four walls, the ceiling, the floor
To cry out of you and so my own voice strikes me
To smell of you and so men turn wild
Because men can’t endure the untried
The brought from elsewhere and it’s early, do you hear me
It’s too early yet in this world my love

To speak of you and me.


IV.
It’s too early yet in this world, do you hear me?
The monsters have not yet been tamed, do you hear me
My lost blood and the pointed, do you hear me
Knife
Like a ram that runs amid the skies
And snaps the boughs of the stars, do you hear me
It’s me, do you hear me
I love you, do you hear me
I hold you and I lead you and I dress you
In Ophelia’s white bridal gown, do you hear me
Where do you leave me, where are you going and who, do you hear me

Holds your hand over the floods

The day will come, do you hear me
The enormous lianas and the lava of volcanoes
Will bury us and thousands of years later, do you hear me
They’ll make us luminous fossils, do you hear me
For the heartlessness of men to shine, do you hear me
Over them
And throw us away in thousands of pieces, do you hear me
In the waters one by one, do you hear me
I count my bitter pebbles, do you hear me
And time is a great church, do you hear me
Where sometimes the figures, do you hear me
Of Saints
Weep real tears, do you hear me
The bells open on high, do you hear me
A deep passage for me to pass through
The angels wait with candles and funeral psalms
I go nowhere, do you hear me

Either no one or we two together, do you hear me

This flower of tempest and, do you hear me
Of love
Once and for always we cut it, do you hear me
And it cannot come into bloom otherwise, do you hear me
In another earth, in another star, do you hear me
The soil, the very air we touched
And no more, do you hear me

And no gardener was so fortunate in other times

To put forth a flower amid such a winter, do you hear me
And such northwinds, only we, do you hear me
In the middle of the sea
From only the wish for love, do you hear me
Raised a whole island, do you hear me
With caves and capes and flowering cliffs
Listen, listen
Who speaks to the waters and who weeps, can you listen?
Who seeks the other, who cries out – do you listen?
It’s I who cry out and it’s I who weep, do you hear me
I love you, I love you, do you hear me.


V.
Of you I have spoken in olden times
With wise wet nurses and with veteran rebels
Whence comes your sorrow of the wild beast
The reflection on your face of trembling water
And why, then, am I destined to come near you
I who don’t want love but want the wind
But want the gallop of the bareback standing sea

And no one had heard of you
For you neither dittany nor mushroom
In Crete’s high places nothing
Only for you God agreed to guide my hand

This way, that way, heedful of the whole round
Of the face’s shore, the bays, the hair
On the hill wavering left there

Your body with the stance of the solitary pine tree
Eyes of pride and of the translucent
Depths, inside the house with the old breakfront
With it’s yellow lace and cypress wood
Alone I wait for where you’ll first appear
High on the roof terrace or behind the yard’s flagstones
With the horse of the Saint and the egg of the Resurrection

As from a ruined wall painting
Big as small life wanted you
To fit the stentorian volcano glow into the little candle

So that no one might have seen or heard
Anything in the wilderness the ruined houses
Neither the ancestor buried at the yard wall’s edge
Of you, nor the old lady with all her herbs

For you only I, perhaps, and the music
That I push down inside me but it returns stronger
For you the unformed breast of twelve years
Turned to the future with its red crater
For you the bitter fragrance like a pin
You find within the body that pricks the memory
And here the soil, here the doves, here our ancient earth.

VI.
I’ve seen much and the earth to my mind seems more beautiful
More beautiful in the golden vapours
The sharp stone, more beautiful
The violets of isthmuses and the roofs amid the waves
More beautiful the rays where without stepping your pace
Above the sea’s mountains invincible as the Goddess of Samothrace

Thus I have looked at you and that’s enough
For all time to become innocent
In the wake your passage leaves my soul
Follows like an inexperienced dolphin

And plays with the white and the azure!

Victory, Victory where I’ve been vanquished
Before love and with it
For the passion flower and the hibiscus
Go, go even if I’ve been lost
Alone, and let the sun you hold be a newborn babe
Alone, and let me be the homeland that mourns
Let the world I sent to hold the laurel leaf for you be
Alone, the wind strong and alone the very round
Pebble in the blink of the dark depths
The fisherman who lifted up and cast back again into time Paradise!


VII.
In Paradise I’ve marked an island out
Identical to you and a house by the sea

With a big bed and a little door
I’ve cast an echo into the bottomless deeps
To see myself each morning when I arise

To see half of you pass in the water
And half for which I weep in Paradise.

Dear Sophie,
I was surching for the turkish translation of "The Monogram" but unfortunately couldn't find. Thank you so much. It is one of my favourites. Doesn't matter how many times I read, it is always like I read it first time.
With best regards,
Bliss

YALNIZ KADIN



Kimbilir yalnızlığı kadınlar kadar

Karlı dağların en yüksek tepeleri mi

Terkedilmiş şehirlerin caddeleri mi

Gökyüzünün yıldızsız geceleri mi



Kadınlar bir ömür boyunca yalnız

Ta dünya kurulduğundan beri

Yalnızlık ışığını yakar her gece

Sonsuz karanlığımızda elleri



Nasıl yağmur yağarsa yalnızlığına şehrin

Öyle mahzun ve yalnız kadınlar tanıdım

Denizler ortasında geniş ve derin



Bir dünyü gördüm kadınların gözlerinde kapkara

Yalnızlık ne imiş anladım

Acıdım kadınlara
ÃœMİT YAŞAR OGUZCAN

UZAK DEĞİL

Çaresizlik akşamında düşÃ¼nülmüş
Bakıp bakıp kör pencereden
Bir yudum suyun bir soluk havanın
Sudan da havadan da üstün dost yüzünün özleminde
Alıp başımı gitmek. Atsız arabasız
Alıp başımı düşlerin çıkmazından
Karışmak taşa toprağa. Yolculuk…

RIFAT ILGAZ


TO BE OR NOT TO BE



Bütün mesele

İçmek ya da içmemek değil

İçince küçülmemek

Küçülünce içmemek
ÃœMİT YAŞAR OGUZCAN

Denklem

Bu denklemin bir çözümü olacak
Ben diyemiyorum vay

Ben diyemiyorum ama sen anla
Sen de konuşma gözlerin yeter
Ne çıkar dolansa dursa bu kara bulut
İki akkor parçasıdır bana gözlerin
Ne çıkar yani konuşmasak da
Bir bakış aramızda her şeye değer
Hem savaşlar, kavgalar bitiyor mu konuşmakla
Dilersen görme de beni, beni sevme, beni unut
Ama altın aşkına, petrol aşkına
Emekçi alınlardan dökülen ter aşkına
İnsanın insana sultanlığını unutma

Bu denklemin bir çözümü olacak
Ben diyemiyorum vay

İşte bundandır ki hep böyle yorgun gezerim
Her çağdan sorular yüklenerek
Ne denli yorulsam omuzlarım düşmüyor nedense
Nedense sen hep kolunda kitaplarla gelirsin
Sen gelirsin gözlerime ışık gelir, evime renk
Hadi git suya bırak elini yüzünü
Bak tarhana çorbası yaptım buğusu ne hoş
Bir baş da soğan kırarım deme gitsin
Kasaplara dargınsam denizle aram iyi
Akşama balıkla salata var şarap yoksa neyleyim
Bilirsin seni ben içkilerden açık severim

Bu denklemin bir çözümü olacak
Ben diyemiyorum vay

Kızma dumanlanıyorsam sigaralarla bolcana... nedeni var
Dindiremediğim ağrı kendimin değil inan
Hani. Şu helva meselesi, şekeri unu bol da
Kendisi bir türlü yapılamayan....

Sen de tutmuş beni oyuyorsun gönlüne... vazgeç
Vazgeç sevdanı büyütmekten
Sokaklarda kalan çocukları büyüt... kıvanayım
İnsanın insana hakkını ver... insanı kotar
Maden ocaklarına gir, kazma salla onlarla
Ya onlara güneşi indir, ya onlara güneşi çıkar.

Bu denklemin bir çözümü olacak
Ben diyemiyorum vay

Her sabah gazeteler yaylım ateş ve ben yenik
Her sabah bozguna uğruyorum ezilenlerle birlik
Kanını satışa çıkaran bir adam varken çaresizlikten
Bunca doğal zenginliğimizde bebekler borçlu doğarken
Ve yirmibirinci yüzyılda cennet yurdumda
Toplumun tortusu insanlarım mağaralarda yaşarken
Ben seni sevemem boylu boyunca
Kendimi bırakamam havasına sevdanın
Savaş çığlıkları uğuldarken kulaklarımda

Ancak bunları ve dahalarını yok kılarsan bana
İşte o zaman ben sana koşa koşa...

Bu denklemin bir çözümü olacak
Ben diyemiyorum vay
Şair : Türkan İldeniz

İ WİSH SOMEONE COULD TRANSLATE THESE POEMS....

ÖZLEDİM SENİ..


özledim seni...
ayrılık yüreğimi uyuşturuyor karıncalandırıyor nicedir.
beynimi uyuşturuyor özlemin...
çok sık birlikte olmasak bile
benimle olduğunu bilmenin
bunca zamandır içimi ısıttığını
yeni yeni anlıyorum
Yokluğun,
Hatırladıkça yüreğime saplanan bir sizi olmaktan çıkıp
mütemadiyen bir boşluğa
Sabahları seni okşayarak başlamaları
aksamları her isi bir kenara koyup
seninle baş başa konuşmaları özlüyorum;
oynaşmalarımızı,
yürüyüşlerimizi,
sevimli haşarılığını,
çocuksu küskünlüğünü...
Nasılda serttin başkalarına karşı
beni savunurken;
ve ne kadar yumuşak
bir çift kısık gözle kendini
ellerimin okşayışına bırakırken
Gitmeni asla istemediğim halde
buna mecbur olduğunu görmek
ve sana bunları söylemeden
'git artık' demek
'beni ne kadar çabuk unutursan, o kadar çabuk
kavuşacaksın mutluluğa'
demek sana nede zor
seni görmemek ve belki yıllar sonra
karsılaştığımızda
bana bir yabancı gibi bakmanı istemek senden...
yeni bir sevdayı yasakladığım kalbime söz geçirmek....



ÃœMİT YAŞAR

Gel Artık..

Umutlarım yorgun...
Eylüllerim tükenmek üzere…

Ömrümün son noktası
Koyuldu koyulacak....

Kısırlaştı
Mutluluklarım..

Kederlerim
Doğurgan....

Gel artık SEVGİLİ.

Yıldız yıldız..
Öperim gerdanından..

Gecelerim ol gel....

Ahmet Kovancı



Gel Artık



Ne serin bir yel söndürdü hasretini
Ne de hızla yağan yağmur taneleri
Alışamadım bir tanem yokluğuna
İstemiyorum artık karanlık geceleri



Sensiz buralar boz bulanık
İnan yürek dayanmaz bu acıya
Uzat ellerini ne olur artık
Boynum bükük,yüreğim yanık


Alışırsın demiştin alışamadım
Sensiz gecelerde uyuyamadım
Yapma gülüm ne olur sende gel
Sensiz hiçbir şeyi başaramadım

ULVİ Ã‡UKUR

Ramayan thank you for the poems. They must be beautiful but... wouldn't it be better if you exercised your english studies and gave us the translations as well?

Here is a poem I loved, translated (unfortunately) by me. Please show some mercy ha?

(THE VOICES) B' To you that I loved
THE WAVES AND THE VOICES 1971 by Prodromos Markoglou

You that i loved
Like the prisoner dreams of the oceans and the meadows
And the words,
Rolled from my body
Sometimes silent tears,
Ocean’s wild waves,
Trying to find a way to describe to you
The distance that seperates the ımagınary from the other’s flesh,
Blooddrop the radial love,
İ lost you on the turn
When everything was about to take a different aspect
Scared already from the metamorphosis
My words were foreshadowing
And a light was already shimmering
That was approaching deeply in the eyes.

It was the road to the sea
Between the undershrubs
Opened the crevice naked underneath our feet,
The lilacs were bowing on the shadowy place
With a dark light they were shadowing your face
The sea lied infront of my feet
And behind me a wall of glass
Where i mangled my fleshes
Seeking you
Denying to admit
That so much blood will go in vain...


and the original text...

Πρόδρομος Χ. Μάρκογλου
(ΟΙ ΦΩΝΕΣ ) Β' Εσένα που σ' αγάπησα
ΤΑ ΚΥΜΑΤΑ ΚΑΙ ΟΙ ΦΩΝΕΣ 1971


Εσένα που σ’ αγάπησα
Καθώς ο φυλακισμένος ονειρεύεται τις θάλασσες και τα λιβάδια
Και τα λόγια
Κυλήσαν από το σώμα μου άλλοτε
δάκρυα σιωπηλά,
άγρια της θάλασσας κύματα,
ψάχνοντας να σου περιγράψω
την απόσταση που χωρίζει την ιδέα από τη σάρκα του άλλου,
σταγόνα αίμα η ακτινωτή αγάπη,
σ’ έχασα στη στροφή
εκεί που όλα πήγαιναν να πάρουν μιαν όψη άλλη
φοβισμένη κιόλας από τη μεταμόρφωση που ευαγγελίζονταν
τα λόγια μου
κι έφεγγε ήδη ένα φως
που πλησίαζε βαθιά στα μάτια.

Ήταν ο δρόμος για τη θάλασσα
Στους χαμηλούς θάμνους
Άνοιξε το ρήγμα γυμνό κάτω από τα πόδια μας,
Οι πασχαλιές πέφτανε στο ισκιερό μέρος
Με σκοτεινό φως σκεπάζανε το πρόσωπό σου
Η θάλασσα άρχιζε από τα πόδια μου
Και πίσω ένας τοίχος με γυαλιά
Όπου κομμάτιασα τις σάρκες μου
Ζητώντας εσένα
Αρνούμενος να παραδεχθώ
Πως τόσο αίμα θα πάει χαμένο...

Thank you Ramayan. Mistakes are not important. Any translation, even with small mistakes, is better than no translation at all.

NIGHTS by Prodromos Markoglou

In the nights a wind blows
The plasters fall down.
The souls remain naked.
They are scurrying in the streets
Black souls, white souls,
Grievous stains,
The wind sweeps them, whirls them
In the street corners.
They move blindly.

The next day
They wear the elaborate masks,
The glowing dresses or the timeworn.
They again take their vested positions.
They repeat the same movements.

Only in the night,
Every night, they tremble and dream.

IN LOVE FOR LONG

I've been in love for long
With what I cannot tell
And will contrive a song
For the intangible
That has no mould or shape,
From which there's no escape.

It is not even a name,
Yet is all constancy;
Tried or untried, the same,
It cannot part from me;
A breath, yet as still
As the established hill.

It is not any thing,
And yet all being is;
Being, being, being,
Its burden and its bliss.
How can I ever prove
What it is I love?

This happy happy love
Is sieged with crying sorrows,
Crushed beneath and above
Between todays and morrows;
A little paradise
Held in the world's vice.

And there it is content
And careless as a child,
And in imprisonment
Flourishes sweet and wild;
in wrong, beyond wrong,
All the world's day long.

This love a moment known
For what I do not know
And in a moment gone
Is like the happy doe
That keeps its perfect laws
Between the tiger's paws
And vindicates its cause.

Edwin Muir

REMEMBER

Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go, yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day
You tell me of our future that you planned:
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.

Yet if you should forget me for a while
And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad

Christina Rossetti

Moro mou!
I am speachless!
Thank you!

Unfortunately yes, I did see myself instead of her, in few years, ha.

YİNE DE BEN TOPLARDIM YERLERDEN KALBİMİN KIRIKLARINI
Even Though I Used to Collect Over Ground The Broken Pieces of My Heart

en çok
senin yanında üşÃ¼rdüm
sen beni her zaman üşÃ¼türdün de
haddimi aştığım zamanlarda
sana yaklaşmayı denediğim zamanlarda yani
en acımasız soğuğunu çarpardın üstüme
çok toydum
dayanamazdım
buz kesilirdim
ve son bir vuruşla
paramparça etmeyi de ihmal etmezdin
o buz kütlesini her seferinde

at most
i used to get cold near you
as you used to always get me cold
when i get too much of my business
when i tried to get closed to you, i mean
you used to blow your the most merciless cold to me
i was feast
i couldnt stand it
i used to be cold as ice
you wouldnt even miss to tear me into pieces
that ice mass in every time

yine de ben toplardım yerlerden kalbimin kırıklarını

even though, i used to collect my hearts broken pieces from ground


suya benzerdin
musluktan damlardın mesela
ben uykuya dalmadan hemen önce
uykumu ***mek için

you used to seem like water
you used to drip from tap for instance
just before i start to fall asleep
to ruin my sleep

yada durup dururken
bir salgın hastalık getirirdin uzaklardan
bana armağan ederdin

or without a reason
you used to bring epidemic disease from fars
and you used to present it to me

hiç bi şey yapmasan
ayakkabımın içine girerdin
tam da evden yeni çıkmışken ben

even you dont do anything
you used to fit in my shoe
as i just stepped back from home

sen basbayağı suya benzerdin
ne zaman kötü hissetsen
kötü hissettirmek için
yokuş aşağı akmaya başlardın bütün gücünle
tabi ki ben olurdum yokuşun altında
ve her zaman hazırdı savunman;
yokuş yukarı nasıl akacaktın
ve tabi ki gövdemi parçalardın
sen benim gövdemi parçalardın da
yine de ben toplardım yerlerden kalbimin kırıklarını

you really used to look like to water
whenever you felt bad
to make make me feel bad
you used to flow down with your all power
ofcourse i used to be at down of the hill
and always your defence was ready
how would you flow to up
and also you tear my body into pieces
you used to tear my body into pieces
even though i again used to collect broken pieces of my heart

sen suya benzerdin ya
sensiz olmazdı
olduğu kadar da olmazdı
yani ben bir hiç kimseydim
ama yine de ben toplardım yerlerden kalbimin kırıklarını

as you used to look like water
i couldnt be without you
it couldnt even be, as much as it could
i mean, i was nobody
though, again i used to collect the broken pieces of my heart

sırf ayaklarına batmasın diye..

just for having your foot not to wound...


Emre Aydin



i found out this on the official website of that new singer and i wanted to share...

To my dear Slavica and Duda.
Thank you for the beautiful poems!

SUTON

Ja te volim jednim žarom neveselim
I sumnjom u tugu i lepotu jada:
Sreća koju imam uniÅ¡tava sada
Beskonacnu drugu sreću koju želim.

Zaklanjaš mi sunce, a dala si sama
Sto očiju mome srcu, i sve pute
Duši, da bi ipak sva nestala u te,
Kao izgubleni zvuk u dolinama;

I sto volya kao belih jata k jugu,
Da sva na tvoy ostrv padnu očarana;
I sto vera da ti slede jednog dana,
Ko sto bele dece u litiju dugu.

Digla si sto mržnja, da stražare kao
Sto crnih jedrila, sva pred tvojom lukom;
I tako mom duhu prinela si rukom
Cvet tvog bića krupan, otrovan i zao.

I svom straÅ¡ću prve i poslednje žene,
VladaÅ¡ mojom duÅ¡om, svom i svagda - slična
Sudbi, tako i ti, silna, nepomična
Stojiš izmed mene i sveg oko mene -

Dok iz suhe stene bije nova voda,
I plavi cvetovi iz staroga panja,
I sijaju kao u sam dan postanja
Sva zvezdana kola sa veikog svoda!

Moju ljubav, taninu kao mrak i česti,
Ja ispunih mržnjom, kajanjem i strahom -
No žed za izdajstvom pretvori se mahom
Sva u novi zavet i slast ispovesti.

Tako gorko pada neko veče bledo
Na sve moje pute; bolno, po sve doba,
Duboko u meni dok ljubav i zloba
Kao dva angela poju naporedo.

Jovan Dučić


TWILIGHT

I love you with a melancholy ardor
And with doubt in the beauty and gloom of sorrow:
The present happiness is destroying
The infinite other happiness I crave.

For me you erase sunshine, though you did give
A hundred eyes to my heart, and opened
New roads to my soul, but you had them all merge
In you, like sounds that fade into a valley!

A hundred desires resembling white flocks
Headed south, only to land bewitched on your isle;
A hundred religions to trail one day behind you
Like a hundred white-clad children in procession.

You raised a hundred hatreds to stand guard
Like a hundred black sails at the entrance to your port;
Thus, to my soul you extended your hand
With the huge poisoned blossom of your being.

With all the passion of the first and last woman
You rule my soul, entire, forever - like
Fate, you too, reign omnipotent, immobile.
You stand between me and all that is around -

While from dried up rocks spring new waters,
And blue flowers blossom from an old stump,
And sparkle as on the day of their birth
All galaxies from a boundless sky!

My love, like the shadows in a thicket,
I filled with hatred, remorse and fear -
But my thirst for treason changed in a flash
Into new oats and the delights of confession.

Thus falls bittely, a curtain faded twilight
Befogging my road; painfully and forever,
While deep in me, love and envious malice
Sing together like two angels in a choir.

Twas the night before Christmas - Clement Clarke Moore (1779 - 1863)

Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St Nicholas soon would be there.

The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads.
And mamma in her ‘kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled our brains for a long winter’s nap.

When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.

The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow
Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below.
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a miniature sleigh, and eight tinny reindeer.

With a little old driver, so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment it must be St Nick.
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name!

"Now Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer and Vixen!
On, Comet! On, Cupid! on, on Donner and Blitzen!
To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!
Now dash away! Dash away! Dash away all!"

As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky.
So up to the house-top the coursers they flew,
With the sleigh full of Toys, and St Nicholas too.

And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
Down the chimney St Nicholas came with a bound.

He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot.
A bundle of Toys he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a peddler, just opening his pack.

His eyes-how they twinkled! his dimples how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow.

The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath.
He had a broad face and a little round belly,
That shook when he laughed, like a bowlful of jelly!

He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself!
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head,
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread.

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And filled all the stockings, then turned with a jerk.
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose!

He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.
But I heard him exclaim, ‘ere he drove out of sight,
"Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night!"

Awwwwwwwwwwww

Twas the Night Before Christmas ... wow, that brings back memories of my youth .. and almost brought a tear to my eye!!

My most favourite poem is not an informal one, but written by P.N. van Eijk, a Dutch poet. It's called 'De tuinman en de dood' (something like: The gardener and the death). I cannot translate it, though I really would love to share.

its awesome Slavica... really another good work...