Mehmet Akif Ersoy: Modern English Translations of Turkish Poems

Mehmet Âkif Ersoy (1873-1936) was a Turkish poet, author, writer, academic, member of parliament, and the composer of the Turkish National Anthem.

Snapshot
by Mehmet Akif Ersoy
loose English translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Earth’s least trace of life cannot be erased;
even when you lie underground, it encompasses you.
So, those of you who anticipate the shadows,
how long will the darkness remember you?



Zulmü Alkislayamam
"I Can’t Applaud Tyranny"
by Mehmet Akif Ersoy
loose English translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I can't condone cruelty; I will never applaud the oppressor;
Yet I can't renounce the past for the sake of deluded newcomers.
When someone curses my ancestors, I want to strangle them,
Even if you don’t.
But while I harbor my elders,
I refuse to praise their injustices.
Above all, I will never glorify evil, by calling injustice “justice.”
From the day of my birth, I've loved freedom;
The golden tulip never deceived me.
If I am nonviolent, does that make me a docile sheep?
The blade may slice, but my neck resists!
When I see someone else's wound, I suffer a great hardship;
To end it, I'll be whipped, I'll be beaten.
I can't say, “Never mind, just forget it!” I'll mind,
I'll crush, I'll be crushed, I'll uphold justice.
I'm the foe of the oppressor, the friend of the oppressed.
What the hell do you mean, with your backwardness?



Çanakkale Sehitlerine
"For the Çanakkale Martyrs"
by Mehmet Akif Ersoy
loose English translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Was there ever anything like the Bosphorus war?―
The earth’s mightiest armies pressing Marmara,
Forcing entry between her mountain passes
To a triangle of land besieged by countless vessels.
Oh, what dishonorable assemblages!
Who are these Europeans, come as rapists?
Who, these braying hyenas, released from their reeking cages?
Why do the Old World, the New World, and all the nations of men
now storm her beaches? Is it Armageddon? Truly, the whole world rages!
Seven nations marching in unison!
Australia goose-stepping with Canada!
Different faces, languages, skin tones!
Everything so different, but the mindless bludgeons!
Some warriors Hindu, some African, some nameless, unknown!
This disgraceful invasion, baser than the Black Death!
Ah, the 20th century, so noble in its own estimation,
But all its favored ones nothing but a parade of worthless wretches!
For months now Turkish soldiers have been vomited up
Like stomachs’ retched contents regarded with shame.
If the masks had not been torn away, the faces would still be admired,
But the ***** called civilization is far from blameless.
Now the ****** demand the destruction of the doomed
And thus bring destruction down on their own heads.
Lightning severs horizons!
Earthquakes regurgitate the bodies of the dead!
Bombs’ thunderbolts explode brains,
rupture the ******* of brave soldiers.
Underground tunnels writhe like hell
Full of the bodies of burn victims.
The sky rains down death, the earth swallows the living.
A terrible blizzard heaves men violently into the air.
Heads, eyes, torsos, legs, arms, chins, fingers, hands, feet...
Body parts rain down everywhere.
Coward hands encased in armor callously scatter
Floods of thunderbolts, torrents of fire.
Men’s chests gape open,
Beneath the high, circling vulture-like packs of the air.
Cannonballs fly as frequently as bullets
Yet the heroic army laughs at the hail.
Who needs steel fortresses? Who fears the enemy?
How can the shield of faith not prevail?
What power can make religious men bow down to their oppressors
When their stronghold is established by God?
The mountains and the rocks are the bodies of martyrs!...
For the sake of a crescent, oh God, many suns set, undone!
Dear soldier, who fell for the sake of this land,
How great you are, your blood saves the Muslims!
Only the lions of Bedr rival your glory!
Who then can dig the grave wide enough to hold you. and your story?
If we try to consign you to history, you will not fit!
No book can contain the eras you shook!
Only eternities can encompass you!...
Oh martyr, son of the martyr, do not ask me about the grave:
The prophet awaits you now, his arms flung wide open, to save!

Keywords/Tags: Ersoy, Turk, Turkish, translation, earth, world, life, death, grave, underground, shadows, darkness, remember, remembrance, memory, tyranny, cruelty, oppressor, oppressed, ancestors, elders, injustice, injustices, evil, justice, martyrs, mrbtran

When people
Talk about love
It always seems shallow.
But really,
How can creatures as simple as I
Be expected to use such a limited medium as language
To express a feeling, an emotion, a pull so deep
A process so quick yet so intricate
As the wide, beautiful waters of love
The raging, welcoming oceans of love;
The ever-confusing, always painful waves of love.
Its never shallow depths that drag me down.
And in the same way love is water,
                                Love is fire
Scorching heat, licking flames, crackling tinder, flying embers.
Love is as complex as fire and water, earth and air, infatuation and attraction.
It hurts beautifully and pleases terribly.
But we look for it in everything.
So if my love poems sound shallow,
if my songs are superficial,
my art simplistic,
Forgive the language’s
lack of expression.
For if the world meant ‘I love you’
Then I’d give you the universe.

The skies have rendered everything a pale grey.
Not used to our own thoughts, the screams still ring in our ears.
We are all wandering under the ash rain, eyes low.
Nothing heard, nothing said.
There’s not much of us left, not much of anything.
After this agony, where will we go?

When these wounds heal, and the skies finally clear.

All we will have is a wasteland.

At the bottom of the earth,
Where the mother of the wind lives,
and the flowers of the graves
spin the yarn of wick thoughts.  

At the bottom of the earth,
Where butterflies flap their wings
on the paths of bungling scalpers,
hoping that the mother typhoon’ll move the sand grain of barren spirit.

At the bottom of the earth,

The mother of the wind is senseless,

The mother of the mountain fires life and forges death,

The mother of the sea’s whirling its flow upstream,

The mother of the winter unfreezes
the wings of the blizart on the icy stones,

The mother of the roses draws breath
from the fragrance of grief,

The mother of the wildernes’burning
the roots of thirst,

The mother of the black sea’sipping life from palmier trees,

The mother of the moon running trough iron clouds, like nebula through the light,

The mother of the earth gives, and gives, and gives,
Gives you everything you need,

At the bottom of this earth,
Only you human are dreaming to stay caved in eternity.