Poems by ​Levent Karataş

KOALA
​
Your kiss smells of eucalyptus
This is what I say unwittingly
Whilst I bid you farewell.
As always we talked
We love with weary clauses
And with habits my dear
Like the wish trees.

My identity card is worn and torn too
Doctors prepare epicrisis meticulously
I became an uncle forty three times
Besides I grew up to become myopic
Besides I grew up to become crow.

Today I warmly clad for you
I sought out my pullover
Burled by birds and flowers
As I stir up the wardrobes
I thought you’ll suddenly show up
Amid from the garments
With a teddy koala in your arms
And say “Surprise my dear.”

Such a madness, you had gone.




The Kitchen

Those who know everything are in the kitchen,
 those who know nothing are in the living room


I .                                         
I brought this solitude here
My nothingness, my absence is this
The refrigerator is poem now
It’s space is Attila József’s cry
It’s fulness is a big-
Italian family prayer


II.
I brought this solitude here
To the monitorial kitchen, to the industrial districts
4 Levent Americanist Ahmet, is a poem now
Table from lemon boxes, Muslum  [1]
Sounds of hammer, rhythm of Latin America



III.
I brought this solitude here
To the cell houses’ Stalin walls
Revolution is a poem now
Travelling around the world like a ghost,
The ballad of Atahualpa Yupanqui 
Son Jesus’ last supper-
A shepherd’s song played by double caval



IV.
I brought this solitude here
To the ‘Top Secret Rooms’ of labyrinth talks
 ‘West Study Group’ is a poem now
Seated on a Mediterranean dinner table with fish
An officer with a cloak, zeibek of Salonica
Hugging his woman, ‘jazz form of the city’






V.
I brought this solitude here
And the birds carrying love in the letters in their beaks
Istanbul is a poem now
A wife puts her handkerchief on earth, Nikriz Peshrev
Message in a bottle left from the shore of the Bosphorus’s water to the eternity-
“I suffered the pangs of love once” [2] tango



VI.
I brought this solitude here
To the Borges’s Tanka Notebook
Library is a poem now
Frosty angels’ orbit, operetta
A book read through the silence in a chateau looking over a lowland,
Valse of the rain


VII.
I brought this solitude here
Without stepping over my shadow’s lines 
Loneliness is a poem now
A dervish slept in his cilehane, begging
Look of a boy who drew a bird, Cemal Sureya’s very good [3]


VIII.
I brought this solitude here
To the ‘Homeland Hotel’s [4] window looking over trains 
Country is a poem now
Winter fair’s iridescent scene, 'Rain of quails’ [5]
Matinee of the ‘Kosk Cinema’ Anastasia, The Eagle Dance


IX.
I brought this solitude here
New York/ 42nd Avenue/ four o’clock at night
No gangsters’ footsteps are quiet    
Manhattan’s dead-ends are a poem now
The City Lights ‘Lookin for some happiness’
Looking to the shopwindows of ‘Q Boutique’ Juliette’s- 
sadness funky silence.






X.
I brought this solitude here
To the funeral homes’ grey backyards
Death is a poem now
Carrying a coffin with fortitude, chamber music
Scattering her ashes to the Pasific waters is her will-
Chansons of her maidenhood…

[1] There is an allusion here to the popular Turkish singer Müslüm Gürses

[2] Popular Turkish tango. Original name is "Ben de gönül çektim eskiden"

[3] There is an alluison here to one of the poem of famous Turkish poet Cemal Sureya.


[4] ‘Homeland Hotel’, original name ‘Anayurt Oteli’ is a book by Turkish writer Yusuf Atılgan.

[5] 'Rain of quails’ original name ‘Bıldırcın Yağmuru’ is Zeki Muren’s book who is a famous Turkish classical music singer.


Translated by Hande Dipligunes

Levent Karataş was born in 1972. His first poetry book named “I’m falling Galileo” was published in 1992. Afterwards his poetry collections of “Tale,” “An Eastern Slumber,” “Pretty Saturday,” “Piano Factories,” “The Distance of an Earthling,” and “The Last Vision” were published. His poems and prose has appeared in magazines such as “Varlık,” “Adam Sanat,” “Gösteri,” “Kitap-lık,” “Sombahar,” “Yasakmeyve” “Şiir-lik,” Şiir Atı,” Şiir Oku,” “İblis,” Şairin Atölyesi,” “Yeni Yüzyıl,” “Cumhuriyet,” “Cumhuriyet Kitap.” The poet lives in İstanbul.

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