Istanbul is wandering on my forehead
the seagulls are flying from my chest
the clouds of the longing on their eyes
the dream showers on my eyelashes
As I compose the poems of the sorrows
pile on my letters the greetings of the fellows
the pipes urges my heart
istanbul doesn’t shelter in my heart
What wraps my shoulders are the shawls of the separation
pours down on me the coolness of the night
you were crippled by how many bends that your wound doesn’t bleed
a light grabbles our memories
It is fall that caresses the hairs of our lives
when my eyes touch the tree on black and white
of a photograph, my mind is scattered
the leaves of the love surround my heart
My loneliness cut out from the cloth of the sorrow
is the pages of the summer, which are not closed
not death, a hope, what my tongue says, anyhow
wait for my youth, you are my longing oh istanbul.


Koray Feyiz
(Translated from Turkish by Koray Feyiz)

An anger lying flat
On the cutting board
Grabbles its fin in the air
With the vile eyes
Lost their focus.

The tip that once had been
A shining guidance
Through the cold, blinding sea,
Now sags its pillar
Lower than its own misery.

Man’s blade sharply stabs
Its belly-
Halving the grand bottom
Before the pain even surfaces.  

Through the fish’s fissure,
Its orange, glowing guts
Slip out-
The liver, the heart, the kidneys-
A avalanche of what used to be
Remnant of life.

Then the maw.
Once a ruler of
Coarse sandy bed
Gabbling the dot lives,
Now chopped
As chunks of flesh.

‘Ah- this is it.
Served as a mere food
For men to eat,
This is where my
Kingdom comes to end.

Those empty halls
I stride through
Now only a
Glimpse of memory-
I close my eyes.’