Friend, you're not the guilty one
The guilty ones are the evenings
See how they drag you down into this obscurity...
Trouble not yourself
Everyday's "Love's Labour Lost"
Vanishes away
Your eyes have learned
The meaning of love anyway
Learn how not to remember
Every point of suffering.

Remember not those eyes, those eyes
Have gone and they've enticed you into smoky cafés
Don't go and believe
your eyes, they're just not
as sharp as they used to be
Friend, because you aren't the guilty one,
The guilty ones are hopes
Leaving you to the shadows.

So what's the use of fussing
If they've never understood
The poems your own baggy eyes
Have forgotten? ...

You're alone in an unknown beyond
Your eyes are alone as well ...
You're not guilty, friend
The guilty ones are hopes
Leaving you alone in darkness.

One does not sell
broken pottery.
Look for profitable business.
Your wife Zâra,
a hump on her back,
beats the wool
Let your hungry children
and your animals that wait for fodder
not cause you to brood;
the marketplace is always there
attaching your ass to money.
You sell your merchandise,
you make money,
you won't go to Ni'de...
You remain without hope
in the marketplace.
Your customers, hearing your voice,
say "Halil is still here..."
Sell your apples
snatched from their branches
and hope they are all eaten;
the marketplace is still there
attaching your ass to money.
You sell your merchandise,
you make money,
you won't go to Ni'de...
Let indifference
not change you,
the shenanigans
and acrobatics
of all sorts -
let all of it
coming from one direction
not tire your mind.
The marketplace is always there
attaching your ass to money.
You sell your merchandise,
you make money,
you won't go to Ni'de...

His hope
has been put into a box
with a small note, saying
"You did not answer your phone,
I am very disappointed."
He closes,
wraps,
ties the box
with colored string.
On top, he writes the address
and carries the box to the postoffice
where it is weighed,
stamped,
paid for.
The sender returns home,
his fist full of joy
all week.
Then, in tears
he returns to the post office
with the postman's receipt.
The box did go out
and it has come back
with the notation:
"The addressee
is not at this address."
After persistently searching
he learns
that his good friend has gone
very far away,
never to return.
The box remains ready
in his mind,
wrapped,
tied,
prepared with his hands...
it was returned
with an address on top.
Life for him
is at a turning point.
But...how?

Full upside down
Time makes tears flow.
To your expectations!
Who leaves
and leaves
roses behind them?
Many colors disappear
one after another
in this unlimited spring
full of pleasures.
In books without titles
the subjects are sinister,
such commercial dishonesty
assassins of feelings,
enemies of love.
In towns
flowers water the roses,
remain in the shade
of polluted air.
Full.
Full upside down
Time makes tears flow.
To your expectations!

Sorrows clash
in white roses;
in nocturnal obscurity
water flows noisily,
mirrors transform into a sea.
Her color extends in the flow,
the earth whitens at her approach;
the shepherd's star shatters
and darknesses fall silent
I cannot tear them from myself
for she bonded with me in dying;
the waters flow noisily,
the mirrors transform into a sea.

Obstacles before you
detours behind
in the name of nothing at all.
Coming and going for 20 years
certain things do not change.
Love
is a final act
a make good
a remedy
for all evil.
If men
do not love one another
certain things do not change.

A feeling of nearness to suffering
In our hearts
While we reduce the dimensions
Of the essence of light
With our eyes
In a local scuffle
Them
They have woven a net around us.
Bearing the pains of life
While watching the people with sullen faces
And tired thoughts
All along the years
We have heard the whistle of whips...
With well-concealed thoughts
Those
Never thought of us
And... without any mercy
Have woven a net around us.

Your expectations are carved into my eyes...
Their shapes melt in my dreams
The face seen in your postcards
Is not that of your soul Istanbul...
Living apart does not change your seas
Your waiting landscapes offer themselves
Thoughts do not remain still
Istanbul rests its weight upon my loneliness...
White fish swim in your living past
Seagulls float in your memories
Obliterated friendships stay awake till dawn
Anatolia rises from your horizons Istanbul...

They are sinking
In the multiplication tables
While growing older
In a lack of emotional resources...
The differences
Are unnoticeable
In mirrors...
These
They are nailed
To loneliness.
The seasons
Are unnoticeable in their hearts...
The years
Rotting
In their eyes
To them...
The revolution
Is not the result
Of the last few minutes
In their alphabet
There is a path
To curses.

Watching the end
Painful memories knot themselves
Behind your eyes
Hopes are suspended one by one
Your hands will never reach
My hands...
You will suffer infinite pains
Your nights of freedom will be woven
Into your dreams
The palest of your hopes will exhaust itself
In the most horrible darkness
These shadows
Will be sewn into your thoughts
In a distant cell
Thousands of miles away
And... your eyes will never meet
My eyes...

Once upon a time
I was seated under an oak
Doing a little homework.
Down came the sun through its branches
And on my books its rays fell
An awful hot wind was blowing.
And afterwards as it passed
There came its illusions, their whites
Reaching out for my eyes.
Beneath the oak tree
In the midst of the silence of the fields
I was refreshed by the sight
 far away mountains
All snow-covered, so far away
My thoughts lay down, stretched out
Amidst the clover
And every single time the storks came in to land
I felt overjoyed. and wept.

Had this tree but one lonely branch
That leaning over just reached out
For the thoughts of those who love..
We surely would have come to love to taste its fruit
So I never get enough of it even from my window.
You see, its leaves will never fall
On Earth's blind shoulders,
Instead it just keeps growing, growing up
Into the arms of the wind
Had this tree but one lonely branch,
It would pierce straight on through to skies so blue
And tender stars to silence
And disobey the wind.

Iskender was a model
For telling time
And people.
You know, like gray night clouds
Through which moonlight filters.
Iskender
Was alone,
He had no one.
They had no love
In their hearts.
They used them to fan themselves
From the desert heat.
For fear of unmoving targets
They never
got to know
Iskender...
Ever since that day
I keep thinking about Iskender.
Ever since that day
I keep thinking about Iskender.
For them Iskender
Was merely a dream.
But inside of me he just kept growing.
Iskender was a model
For telling time
And people.
You know, like gray night clouds
Through which moonlight filters.

The apricot trees
My father planted
Never got a chance to grow.
His only hope.
For years and years he.d given it his all..
Tried everything he could,
Busted his head
Trying to make them grow.
Every now and then
He'd observe the clouds.
Still,
All those years he lost
wound up secrets in his heart.
The earth bared
All its veins, one by one.
A leaf dropped,
A branch broke
And made a noise.
But they
Never said a thing.
The apricot trees
My Father planted
Never got a chance to grow.

As dusk fell one evening
I felt your existence
For the very first time
These pages full of poems
Had dropped from your hands.
A gust had carried them off
I ran and chased after them.
It's almost as if your feelings
Were flying at me at breakneck speed
All the time I was running, running with the wind
In the evening as it deepened.
In you, in me as well there's a photo
Of us when we were there
The memory I still have of it
And of my feelings poured out in poems.

Brother, garbage sweeper,
Don't sweep anyone's hopes away
They've tossed into the streets...
Tears, you know,
Cannot smudge
Our Avenues...
Folks on the whole
Keep their regrets
All bottled up...
No you can.t guess
How they feel
When they don.t go outside...
Those garbage pails
You've emptied out for years
And years and years, are mute
Witness to your feelings...
So why allow anyone
Who thinks only of his stomach
To bother you?
Brother, garbage sweeper,
please don't misunderstand
My words...
I never intended
To humiliate you ....
What's the difference
Between us?...
Brother, garbage sweeper,
Don't sweep anyone.s hopes away
They've tossed into the streets...
Tears, you know,
Cannot smear
Our Avenues...

Four seasons open
flower by flower
in her heart
The glances of the daughter-in-law
are hitched to blue hopes
An offspring lies in her arms
After long years
the daughter-in-law's glances
are equivalent to her hopes
She comes towards me
through dull people
The hands of the daughter-in-law
take hold of mine
at earth's table
Her heart is stirred,
her glances tired,
her eyes full of white hopes

You live in your own inner city, which you bought in a
silent auction.
You were again unable to cancel your debts.
Under your blackening eyelids you try to feel certain
things.
Without noticing your withdrawal from self, you leave for
distant parts
by using your ropes of thought like a ski-lift.
Your shudders increase as you touch the numberless elements.
In your screams at the moment when you feel the jolts
from the echoes
of your words crossing the threshold of your thought,
you send birds fleeing before you. As you breathe, your
roses wither.
In your moments of madness, crystals fall from your roof.
As your field of thought shrinks, your city expands. You
exhaust yourself
from running down the streets and avenues.
As the lamps of your voltage machines alight upon your
nights,
your humans robotize themselves.
The toads in your dirty waters frighten even the crocodiles.
Your inner journey makes you grow older.
Your internal cries amplify themselves.
You manifest difficulties with forty paws.
The auxiliary cells of your laboratories do not give you
the opportunity to live any pleasurable moments.
While the fear indicator inside you slackens you through
and through, you
have not
even the possibility of speaking. With each movement of
the clock,
the seasons rip themselves out of your heart.
Your solitude traverses your spirit without cease.

Üzeyir is a poet, a writer and versatile artist. He was born in 1949 in Bor, Turkey. He  graduated as an Architect - Designer of Industry from The Fine Arts Academy of State in Istanbul. His important works are, Akþamlarýn Duraðý and Karar. He started drawing and painting pictures at 14 years of age. His poetries were translated into French by Yakup YURT. The "Reward of Eagernes" was given by The Radio NPS of Holland in 1999 and The "Reward of Palmares" was given by The Organization of Les Amis de Thalie in France. Currently he works in The Center of Adult Education ( AFPA).