Arslan Bayır
Dear visitors, today we will read poems by Arslan Bayır, an influential poet of modern Turkey.
RAIN
Look at the desire and the love
In the pink clouds
It’s raining over the distant harbours
Whereas the stars are falling at night
Drops in the eyes of the grass
They wait for the morning.
Oh, sunny mornings
Light them up
Take out the beauty that’s in your eyes
Or the night won’t get rid of
Your thirsty land
Hides inside your bosom
As it hides the seed
And even love remains silent.
WOMAN
From the first summer night
From the deep sleep
Outside
Dew drops
With the scent of flowers
The moon glows
Shining branches
Swaying in the wind
Ears of wheat
Like the woman’s long hair
Everything is mysterious
In the garden of your heart
The beginning of summer
In the very early hours
Touching your lips
Wet
Wine glass
Dew drops gardens
And roses...
FIRE EYES
When you fall in love
With the sea
You can’t let it go anymore
It was all made of fire tears
Covering its face like velvet
It wanted to hide what was to be said
What should have been discussed
Just like the vanishing of a dividing cloud
Disappears in the sea of time
Otherwise, it will be difficult to live.
When you smile.
Was it too difficult for you
To compete against time?
Is a day worth a month?
There were months you were waiting for
Hopefully.
I knew your pride, but I would ask you
To keep every strand of hair.
Year turns into months, months into days
A way it would be found,
I would run with the wind
With the clouds
And I would rain over you
I would fall out of your hair
To the exhausted lands
I would kiss your seed
Just like the ground kisses it,
Exactly the same.
DOWNPOUR
It rains at night
All the troubles and the rains
The safety shoes on my feet
Fill the rooms with the smell of rain
The chirp sounds everywhere
The night loses its scream,
The light fingers of the darkness rain
Gently flows into the mornings
It beats the window
It rains at night
Waves of the wind
Sliding towards the villages
Spreads her hair
As water pours from tinned clouds
Willow branches bend into streams.
It washes and splits your hair
The earth absorbs water with its roots
The trees bud from the top
The light of lightning shines
Your eyes look like two lighters
That illuminates the darkness.
The sea swells and approaches the beach
It strikes the waves of the gulf
Over the beaches
The night shower
It rains cats and dogs
It takes away every thought
Just like rivers.
It becomes an ointment
For the one in need
Like the bosom of the earth
That is open to hope.
It rains at night
In the night shower
Clouds shake their heads,
The stars come down one by one
To share the joy of the earth
With those lonely friends.
NATURE
Mountains are majestic
Streams are shaded
Brilliant
Green and blue
Together
In the majestic mountains
Under the white veil
Spring flowers on branches
And the summer heat in our hearts
In the coolness of the highland
Autumn breezes
Fields laden with wheat
Grape wine
Green naphtha
Yellow tobacco chimneys
Cultivating the land
Returning to productivity
Kissing the hardworking hand
It is not far
It is within us.