THE TRINITY OF SEA-FARING BLUES REDUCED TO ONE
A day of falsehood and fraud, a day foul and fully lived
A day eyeless earless handless footless disjointed and dumpy
All my losses and glooms massed together and all my chaos
And the adventures I lived through for so many millenia
My glooms and my chaos of millenia massed together
Massed together by a slow process man for man death for death
So many suns, so many sea-snakes and so many systems
I am entitled to sea and moons and to skirmish and despair
For no reason suddenly I liken blue to someone
I recall and revoke the mouth of fish for no reason
That's how I cool off
I had planned on three places all three suitable for you and me
One among the sunflowers one thirty years old don't ask about the third
Don't ask me about the third someday I will tell you myself
If I can muster courage and tact I'll probably tell you
But first let's shed light on this heart-broken darkness
Let's build new cities just like the ones we have
Let's start anew with sesame and bread and overseas and love affairs
Let us go and return
Perhaps at some place in a seed or in a state perhaps
Perhaps that sound or that gulp or soft couches or the greenest green
I could haul rocks invincibly or shovel mud or pave a road
You never can tell maybe we shall find happiness let us go and return
I shall not shirk I shall haul rocks and shovel mud
What's more you have tumultuous rumbling hair anyway
TURGUT UYAR
Translated by Talat Sait Halman.
(Literature East & West, March 1973
