-----Peace and Flower ----- poems --- Beste Sakalli

Dream in  Hald  (Comasia Aquaro)

Peace and Flower

we’ll make peace when we die

when we become soil and get absorbed by a flower trunk

only by then

when the wind drags the seed from limassol to karpaz

and the one in karpaz to paphos

we’ll become flowers and blossom

without looking sideways

only by then

when we are so unaware of each other

of the flower smelt

as we are happy to smell the flower

I hide your eyes as far as I can see

I shall not sleep

Not to have your eyes disappeared from my pillow

May not my dreams or eyelashes interfere

I wish, just like raindrops,

Your eyes shall stay where they fall

When it goes dark

My windows shut firmly

My doors bolted

Feared I am that

An awkward breeze will blow recklessly

Scared I am that

Your eyes will fall off my pillow

When it goes dark

My curtains get sealed

I do throw rocks at the sooty lamps on my street

I chase the homeless cats

That rub against the mirrors and slyly peek inside

No light, no trace of life exist here

You shall think I live on a deserted street

You shall think it’s a ruined village

I hide your eyes as far as I can see

A rose dies away to my unawareness

An ungrateful poem reminds me

Of every detail of your face

Not knowing the torment it causes

A star falls

I can not wish to sleep  

Not to have your eyes disappeared from my pillow

Beste SAKALLI

Translated by Ahmet Gildir

Dream's light  (Comasia Aquaro)

   

My Homeland, My Rip and My Femininity

I’m ripped off

Listen my homeland, I too joined you

as a fire just flamed I’m burning and ruining

and expecting a poem to recreate me,

and at midnight, for the verses to tap me on the face stealthily

trampling and mashing to dust the rules I have made for life

replacing my name with a new one; renaming me

I’m ripped off, my homeland! Ripped off

If Istanbul had me now on her laps and talked to me extensively

If my mother handed me her eyes and explicated dismemberment

and, what if this city would not keep quite when to talk

like a stream unifying with the sea

ripping off as I

what if this city would not keep silent

Ay, homeland

I resemble to you

I’m ripped off

Walls erected in me; someone in me

Lines, boundaries, slashes and separation placed on the remotest edges of my geography

I, the woman flowing to herself, dripping to herself  

I who shrivels up near the wall as her own stage being acted out

Aching for the places which

Resemble to herself, to her homeland, and to her city

I’m ripped off

What if the rip doesn’t grow

Beste Sakallı, born in 1982 in Northern Cyprus, is one of the Turkish Cypriot poets who has accomplished in introducing her poems to the whole world, and in stepping outside the boundaries of Northern Cyprus where has always suffered from instability. Graduated from the university in 2003, Sakallı has already succeeded in establishing her name in the art and literary world by participating, organizing as well as coordinating international poetry nights and events, and of course by significant awards she has been honoured.

She has hitherto represented her country in a number of poetry festivals and events organized primarily by Turkey, and by many other countries such as England, Macedonia and various countries in the Balkans. Beste Sakallı was recently invited to a poetry night called “Boundless” as a guest of honour in Germany where she recited her poems in English and German.

Sakallı’s poems so far have been translated into more than eight languages such as English and German which are considered to be universally predominant languages. And hence, she attracted the attention of the literary and art world. She was therefore honoured with a considerable number of significant awards, among which “Literature Award of Vector Science Trustee” presented to her in 2006 in Baku. Soon after, since she made a great contribution to the art and poetry in her country, last year she was nominated with ‘Award of the Turkish World’ presented by World Union of Turkish Young Writers, 2008

 a very significant award presented to only precious people.

Embracing and adapting poetry-writing as a lifestyle in time, Sakallı has always thought of how to develop her own literary works as well as contributing to the poetry in general in her country. She didn’t limit herself and her works with publishing only poetry books, but also Sakallı directed and presented a TV program on Cyprus Literature for six years. She also organized, for the first time in TRNC, International Poetry Meeting, sponsored by Iskele Municipality, which hosted poets from more than 10 countries. She published her poems and writings in the top newspaper by daily circulation in Cyprus for one and a half years. She has recently begun lecturing literature classes at the Eastern Mediterranean University in Cyprus.

Having published her poems in a number of art magazines all around the world, Sakallı became the TRNC representative of the Alaz and Forum Literature magazines in Turkey. So far, she has had six poetry books published. Regardless of what her poems indicate, she  employs and elaborates on the geography she lives, on disunitedness of her country as well as on the boundaries. By doing so, she has created her own style through which she kept seeking the doors of her country’s and of the rest of the world.  

Her publications include: ‘Barış Tüten Mavilik’ Blueness Smelling of Peace (Poetry, 2000), ‘Papatya Seferleri’ Daisy Expeditions (Poetry, 2001), ‘Kar Yanığı’ Snow Burnt (Poetry, 2002), ‘İnadına Sevdalı’ Deliberately in Love (Poetry, 2003), ‘Bir Sen Vakti’ Time for You (Poetry, 2006) ‘İhlal’ Violation (Poetry, 2009)

 

La fin du monde d' Ernesto De Martino

Angela Biancofiore "Hommage à Franca Rame" -- video -

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nL2bp415vP0

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nL2bp415v

Prix international de poésie « Matiah Eckhard » édition 2017

 http://prixmatiaheckhard.blogspot.it/2016/11/councours-de-poesie-matiah-eckhard-2017.html

Michael R. Burch’s poems

Michael R. Burch’s poems, translations, essays, articles and letters have appeared in publications such as TIME, USA Today, Writer’s Digest, BBC Radio 3 and hundreds of literary journals and websites. His poetry has been translated into nine languages and set to music by composers Alexander Comitas and Seth Wright. He also edits www.thehypertexts.com



Roses for a Lover, Idealized

When you have become to me

as roses bloom, in memory,

exquisite, each sharp thorn forgot,

will I recall—yours made me bleed?

When winter makes me think of you—

whorls petrified in frozen dew,

bright promises blithe spring forsook,

will I recall your words—barbed, cruel?

For All That I Remembered

For all that I remembered, I forgot

her name, her face, the reason that we loved ...

and yet I hold her close within my thought:

I feel the burnished weight of auburn hair

that fell across her face, the apricot

clean scent of her shampoo, the way she glowed                   

so palely in the moonlight, angel-wan.

The memory of her gathers like a flood

and bears me to that night, that only night,

when she and I were one, and if I could ...

I’d reach to her this time and, smiling, brush

the hair out of her eyes, and hold intact

each feature, each impression. Love is such

a threadbare sort of magic, it is gone

before we recognize it. I would crush

my lips to hers to hold their memory,

if not more tightly, less elusively.

The Effects of Memory

A black ringlet curls to lie

at the nape of her neck,

glistening with sweat

in the evaporate moonlight ...

This is what I remember

now that I cannot forget.

And tonight,                          

if I have forgotten her name,

I remember ...

rigid wire and white lace

half-impressed in her flesh,

our soft cries, like regret

... the enameled white clips

of her bra strap

still inscribe dimpled marks

that my kisses erase ...

now that I have forgotten her face.

                                                  Poetry

Poetry, I found you
where at last they chained and bound you;

with devices all around you
to torture and confound you,

I found you—shivering, bare.

They had shorn your raven hair
and taken both your eyes

which, once cerulean as dawn’s skies,
had leapt with the sun to wild surmise

of what was waiting there.

Your back was bent with untold care;
there savage brands had left cruel scars

as though the wounds of countless wars;
your bones were broken with the force

with which they’d lashed your flesh so fair.

You once were loveliest of all.
So many nights you held in thrall

a scrawny lad who heard your call
from where dawn’s milling showers fall—

pale meteors through sapphire air.

I learned the eagerness of youth
to temper for a lover’s touch;

I felt you, tremulant, reprove
each time I fumbled over-much.

Your merest word became my prayer.

You took me gently by the hand
and led my steps from child to man;

now I look back, remember when—
you shone, and cannot understand

why now, tonight, you bear their brand.

*

I will take and cradle you in my arms,
remindful of the gentle charms

you showed me once, of yore;

and I will lead you from your cell tonight—
back into that incandescent light

which flows out of the core
of a sun whose robes you wore.

And I will wash your feet with tears
for all those blissful years . . .

my love, whom I adore.

[Published by The Lyric]