MIST
A stubborn mist envelops the horizon again
and grows like the pharaoh’s curse
Everything seems to fade away under its weight
This heap of dust is the whole view
The eyes looking at the dusty dreaded heap
dare not go deep
You deserve this deep dark cover though
You deserve this cover, oh theater of cruelty
O theater of cruelty… o spectacular stage
O pompous stage decorated by disasters
O the crib and grave of grandeur
The coveted once and future queen of the Orient,
You suckle bloody love without trembling with hatred
in your lascivious bosom
O the living heap sleeping like the dead
in the blue bosom of Marmara.
O decadent Byzantium, o the old witch
O the immaculate widow of a thousand husbands
The spell of youth in your beauty is apparent
as the male gaze still dotes on you
How tame you appear to outsiders with your amorous blue eyes
Tame like the most sullied of women
Numb to all the euphoric tears on you
In your building blocks a treacherous hand
blended the poison of evil
That’s why hypocrisy soils your every particle
where purity can’t find a place
Sullying hypocrisy is all around
Always the filth of hypocrisy, envy, and self-interest
Only this and its prospect of promotion
Among all the corpses you house
how many can come up clean and clear?
Cover yourself yes o calamity. Cover yourself, yes, o city
Cover yourself and sleep till eternity,
o the whore of the world!
O glamour, fanfare, and processions
Killer turrets, palaces with citadels and dungeons
Sturdy grave of memories, exalted temple
O vain columns, bound giants
Destined to tell the past to posterity
O toothless smile of turret ranges
O domes and venerable temples
O the minarets carrying words of truth
O caved in madrasas, fake tribunals
O places under the dark shades of cypresses
So many paupers obtained gravestones
that said ‘May God have mercy on our ancestors.’
O crypts, o ancestors lying quietly waking every loud memory
O old streets, the battlegrounds of dust and mud
O run-down neighborhoods delirious with every gaping hole
where the unsavory lie in nocturnal ambush
O peaceful old houses with sooty roofs representing unbroken mourning
O sorrowful hearths, home to storks and hawks, frowning with pain,
Forgetting what it was like to have a smoking chimney for years
O dry mouths swallowing every kind of ignominy
with the poison of stomachs squeezing
O when endowed with nature’s ready bounty
Hungry, lethargic, and barren
Begging for every blessing, forgiveness, and redemption from the heavens
Such degradation, so hypocritical!
O dogs’ bark, o hollering that curses ingratitude
in humans privileged with speech
O pointless tears, o poisonous smile
O words of sorrow and weakness, the damning gaze
O the legendary memory: honor
O the road that leads to promotion: flattery
O armed fear, oriented towards its own damage
Every lamentation of ill fortune in orphaned and widowed mouths
O saga of the law that gives immunity to people and the right to breathe
akin to freedom
O the undelivered promise,
o infinitely certain lies,
O rights continually banished from courts
O the secret ear dropping on consciences
with exhausted emotions under attack of anxiety
O lips mum with fear of being spied on
O national effort, loathed and scorned
O sword and pen, o two political prisoners
O good manners and virtue, o the forgotten face
O tradesmen, a segment of celebrities, used to living bent with fear
O bowed head squeaky clean yet gross
O young woman, o the youth that runs to watch her
O the mother suffering separation, o the resentful spouse
O stray kids…especially you
Especially you
Cover yourself, yes, o disaster…Cover yourself, yes, o city!
Cover yourself and sleep forever, o the whore of the world!
Translated by Sevda Akyüz
