Poems by ​Tamer Gülbek

Dream with Honey

I was weighing the bored iron in my genes
To and fro, in the pebbly water

One lightness was taking off
While one other was landing in the air
By “air”, I mean the iron outside me

In fact, yesterday was beautiful
My dream with honey was lying
In that shower with no wax
And we were crying out of the
Honeycomb in our souls

Summer was an early bliss
In that unwritten poem

In that pebbly water
My heavily weighed steps
Got darkened in a hurry

Yesterday’s honey dripped into today.



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Natural Park

On a piece of land failing to become an island
A hunger for all, that hops and skips
Among the eddies of different climates

When that April comes with its showers
In green places seen as the South
That absent-mindedness which goes
In and out the sea

The exact midpoint between a whitewash
And a pine framework
When the smell of resin mingles with
The smell of fresh iodine
A distant echo is heard from that gigantic island

We are balls of billiards, that never touch one another
We adore our bodies in a dim beauty
April comes out of showers and goes into a trance

You come out of the stone in which
I’m going to work years later
And you say “This was the stone that derailed me,
Where did you burst out your hope?”

When that April comes with its showers
It suddenly is a baby wild hog in the forest
That refreshes our thoughts.



Translated by the author 

Tamer Gülbek was born in Ankara- Turkey in 1965. He graduated from Boğaziçi University English Language and Literature Department in İstanbul in 1988. He has been working as an English Teacher since then. His first poem was published in Varlık literary review in 1998. His poems and literary articles have been published in many reviews such as Kitap-lık, Ludingirra and Virgül. He also took part in some Turkish literary reviews like Ç.N. with his poetry translations. His translation of Alfred Lord Tennyson’s poetry book Enoch Arden into Turkish was published in 2018. His poetry books are: Zefiran (2008), Suda Tuhaf Hareketler (2009), Güven Park (2010), Yabancı Dil (2013), and Tümünü Görüntüle (2018). He has also got a book consisting of his literary articles: Şiirle Tutulan (2010).

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