"You’re Far Away From Your Country Where I Am" by Gökçenur Ç. translated from Turkish with Robyn Marsack
You’re far away from your country where I am,
day by day my poems
begin to resemble letters lost in the post:
You’ve fallen asleep on your long, banana-colored couch,
your bun is undone, your glasses are about to fall from your fingers,
four of five apples on your plate have been eaten,
a book has a hairbrush between pages to mark where you were,
a Baltic-blue blanket over your knees,
maybe you are dreaming a scene from a play with old voices:
You’re in our apartment, your mother
hasn’t gone mad yet, my brother hasn’t been conscripted
Zeki Müren sings “You’re far away now” on the radio,
in a minute they will cut off the song and announce
that military forces are taking control
for the safety and security of the country,
in a minute you will say “I have to go away”
“I can’t come, because the Turkish is . . .”
You have seen this play a thousand times,
but as you are about to wake up
for the first time you will notice a telegram
on the gramophone:
../don’t wake up../wind../
will drop a dry leaf../on your chest
/like news from me./
You’re far away from your country which is in chaos.
I’m alive for now,
in love, in doubt and immune to being parted.
Ülkenden Uzaktasın, Ülkendeyim
Ülkenden uzaktasın, ülkendeyim
giderek, postada kaybolan mektuplara
benziyor şiirlerim:
Uyuyakalmışsın uzun, muz sarısı koltuğunda
topuzun dağılmış, gözlüğün düşüyor elinden yere
yenmiş tabağında beş elmadan dördü
arasına tarak sıkıştırılmış bir kitap
dizlerinin üstünde prusya mavisi bir örtü
düşünde eski seslerin piyesinden
bir sahne görüyorsun belki
bizdesin, annen çıldırmamış daha,
kardeşimi askere almamışlar
“Şimdi Uzaklardasın” ı söylüyor
Zeki Müren radyoda
birazdan şarkıyı kesip silahlı kuvvetlerin
ülkenin selameti için
yönetime el koyduğunu söyleyecekler
birazdan “gitmem gerek” diyeceksin
“ben gelemem, çünkü Türkçe…”
Binlerce kez izledin bu oyunu
sırılsıklam ter içinde uyanmak üzereyken ama,
ilk defa, buruşturulmuş bir
telgraf ilişecek gözüne
gramafon dolabında :
../’uyanma sakın../’rüzgâr../’
benden haber gibi../’göğsüne kuru
/›bir yaprak düşürecek../’
Ülkenden uzaktasın, ülken çok karışık
şimdilik hayattayım
maşuk, kuşkulu, ayrılığa bağışık
Gökçenur Ç. is a poet, translator, and editor based in Istanbul. He has seven poetry books in Turkish, eleven in translation, and his poems have been translated into 30 languages. He has translated the works of Wallace Stevens, Paul Auster, Ursula Le Guin, and others into Turkish. He is the editor of the Turkish magazine Çevrimdışı İstanbul (İstanbul Offline), co-editor of the Turkish domain of Poetry International, and co-director of international poetry festivals Offline Istanbul, Mosaic of Methahors Gaziantep, and Turkish American Poetry Days.
Robyn Marsack is an editor and translator, and former Director of the Scottish Poetry Library. She lives in Glasgow.
