Poems by Nilay Özer
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park
now you steer the pig for awhile the pig is blameless for the words on its body keep the rope loose everyone's neck deserves mercy and never ever disparage conceit injures its pink flesh the beggar in the corner doesn't like us or the morning qualms that hold back the noon hour or the night walkers veering off he doesn't like we leave words in his palm passing by everything will be ok... trust us... what can words do besides arouse the tongue a lively fire crackling with pinecones hazelnut shells an evening watched through a lover's earring what can words do besides arouse absences light streams through the branches leaves held rapt in the inverse depth we want the light the branches the leaves with a desire unnative to the body this is why our shadows turn into black birds we perch not on branches but on roots we stand and say let all standing gather in us we choose love as close combat weapon learn the alchemy of sand and water because some of us need a glass-eye others stitches for their open wounds as if until then we had webbed feet and hands as if our fingers had just formed in the park to remove the candle's vital thread houses swallowed in the smoke cloud now you relive the killings the accordion is a plasma bank its songs heard in any street in the city and our writing hands write the underground and the truth torture shames us all... save our bacon... we divide among us the severity of consciousness even in nothingness atoms are splitting if you pull on the rain the sky bell rings they want to erase we remember oh for shame a flower blooming in plain sight they want to erase we write again blood is the ink of the ages those who sip tea from ornate cups don't know the grey stench of water flowing between cut stones that's why we've turned into black birds at the very instance our shadows met time we stood and said let all standing gather in us music as arbalest dance as chainmail armor was it just then or later that we called the rose by another name pill-bugs jabbed with pikes and clubs could you count how many could you count justice what remains of us is much more than us there are no birds only their shadows on the stones after any which war the dead don't return wind chimes tangled among the tree branches adorned with streamers ribbons pinwheels was it so the wind could stir more things or because we couldn't adorn the wind your son is gonna die in the next war... habeas corpus... we listen to voices characters in a radio play three women are washing down an older woman tussling roughshod her pale arms her pale arms hot water breaks down hardened thoughts days caught in the folds of her flesh what can words do besides arouse life all religions divide... fear builds walls... we were as keen and transient as a match flare yet those merchants were men of good taste one glance and they knew if our eyes could be signet stones we were tossed in the fire we were no salamanders poetry as scythe best of all is to smile resist we said and stamped its pink flesh now you steer the pig for awhile Translated from Turkish by Aron Aji (Italics are phrases written on the inflatable pig featured in Pink Floyd / Roger Waters concerts.) Rites of Night I night swallows you you are in its mouth it is deep and lustful like a thick forest And it belongs to fire, Its mouth is dry like a burning shroud in your dreams listen -living it lasts longer- to the ballad that seeps from the loves to soak my body is making love an apple scented rite and God’s fallibility is on the flesh? who knows who invented sorrow it creeps on the body like a strange shadow you were a kid and the river was still just a phase I had oozed on you from the mouth of the night II let’s throw a dice as vanity is no more in the rose its the time of the filly now; the groom and the harness… groom, sink your teeth in my hearth it’s blue, the iris, in the eye of the filly descend into the night, dreamy and careless you the sterling-maned and broad chested sorrow that shakes me to the bone I know well the sunrise, its hollow mysteries let’s throw the dice, things are left behind the morning and the city already the night’s arteries pulsate in me I am the women and the filly for you in vain III fun comes after the night quite sleeps get their fix and die headless legs dance fiercely fear takes root in me with their tempo my mother fitted that body for me at a single night, conquered by her youth she gave birth to a jamboree as a sibling to my boredom thrilled the kid’s puzzle on my face See, everyone has resembled somebody else By reproducing a so called innocent dream Whose is this sadness that has touched my eyes My darkness is this infernal noise IV Let the “Book of Advices” remains open night ends and a suggestion on may face starts soon that domestic nausea a fleece of light covers the objects The blindness of the eye haunts the heart a “nothing” lingers in whispers about you the boy who gathers corals in his dreams shadow and the game depends on you I seem to exist but, why I really do not the curse of the day, all dazzles I leave myself to them, the stuffs That the night would have me protected Translated by Ergin Yıldızoğlu |
As a Istanbul born and raised poet, Nilay Özer graduated from Kandilli Kız Lisesi and studied biology teaching and primary teaching in Marmara University, Department of Biology Teaching and Department of Primary. After she worked as an elementary school teacher for two years, she received her MA degree from Bilkent University, Department of Turkish Literature with her thesis about the form-content opposition in Turgut Uyar’s book entitled Divan. She received her PhD from the same department in 2012 with her dissertation titled “Images in Nâzım Hikmet’s Human Landscapes From My Country: Society, History and Cinema”. She has been teaching Turkish, Creative Writing and modern Turkish Literature in major universities and has attended different workshops and gatherings about literature in various NGO’s and instutions since 2008.
Her early poems were published in various literary magazines including Varlık, Adam Sanat in 1995, Her first book titled Zamana Dağılan Nar, was published in 1999. She received the Cemal Süreya Poetry Award in 2004 with her second book titled Ol!.. Her third book Korkuluklara Giysi Yardımı was published in 2015. Nilay Özer’s literature for children has been published in Yapı Kredi Yayınları and other places including Meşe Palamudu Macanda (2015), Uçan Kaçan Bir Pijama Öyküsü (2016), Yara Bandı Fabrikası (2016), Üç Ejder Masalı (2017). |
