Birhan Keskin

Translated by George Messo

 

Winter of Murder

I

Any moment lived only once
bears within itself
its own irreversible error.

They made me give up my wings.
They taught me treachery.

No other news.

II

I lived like a whole split in two
One side an enemy to the other
On my right red-hot sands I walked
An old memory chills my left.

 

III

Candle: touchy. A mollusc
consuming itself with its own flame.
You exist to melt, you believe in your fate.
Unnoticed when dying, you're the time of fading light.

No love trembles for all eternity
A candle dies of lost entirety
and some day man dies of pain.

IV

The well I carry on my face
the cold climate,
the heavy leaf on my skin
the weight
I stop and turn and touch.

I tear the curtain that rain draws between us
I pass beyond sleep's vine in my chest
soon the world will forget me, I don't understand it.

Cold climate,
that I stopped and touched
I too will forget you.

 

V

If man dies he dies one day of pain
of being unable to meet with himself again,
of life never staying where he left it,
of the mistake being irreversible.

No love trembles for all eternity,
a candle dies of lost entirety
and man parts
from his wings one day.

 

Copyright © 2008, Birhan Keskin & George Messo.

Birhan Keskin was born in Kirklareli, Turkey, in 1963. Her first poems began to appear in 1984. She was joint editor of the magazine Göçebe from 1995 to 1998, and has since been an editor at a number of Istanbul publishing houses. Her books include Kim Bagislayacak Beni (Who Will Forgive Me, 2005—a Collected Poems), Ba (2005) and Y'ol (2006). Birhan Keskin was the 2005 winner of Turkey's prestigious Golden Orange Award for Ba. George Messo is a poet, translator, and teacher. His books include From the Pine Observatory (2000), Entrances (2006) and two collections in Turkish. His translation of Ilhan Berk's A Leaf About to Fall was published by Salt in 2006. Shearsman published his third collection of poems, Hearing Still, in 2009, and will also publish his ground-breaking anthology Ikinci Yeni: The Turkish Avant-Garde. He is the editor of Near East Review.