Mehmet Cetin 

born in Dersim, in 1955. jailed more than eight years due to his political activities during the period of 12 September. Poetry collections: Ruzgar ve Gul Iklimi (Season of Winds and Roses/1988), Biragizdan (In Unison/1989), Eylul Cicekleri (September Blossoms/1990), Hatiradir, Yak Bu Fotografi (Burn This Photo, It Is a Keepsake/1995), Askkiran (Love-Breaker/1997), Kekemece (2000), Asmin (1991), Atımı Bağladım İğde Dalına (2006), Kirazların Haziranı (2008), Taşa Hatıra (2009), Suredar (2009), Yas Kitabı (2010), Moderne Turkse Poezie (M.Emin Yıldırım/Systke Söteman) (2010), Suredar (Albüm-2010), Süleyman Cihan: Komünist Bir Önderin Yaşamı (Ahmet Cihan) 2011.

Cetin is the winner of the 1988 Enver Gokce Poetry Award

mehmet çetin writes and lives in amsterdam..

 

PREREQUISITE

(...)

should love be the stimulus leading us on toward lovemaking
the sense of touch is by no means a prerequisite
and the struggle, in short
though be it much more like peace than like war
is but a prerequisite of the mind with stimulus from the heart

Translated by Suat Karantay
"İlkin," Birağızdan (2002 - first edition 1990).
Istanbul: Piya Kitaplığı, p. 28.

I'M SORRY

women with balconies full of flowers are often unhappy

for this sadness my darling I'm very sorry
to the freesia to which I could not express it
to the hydrangea before which I froze

I owe an apology I'm very sorry
to the earth upon which I've cast my shadow
to the river in which I'm but a drop
to the sun I've used to warm my brow
to water I've bent to drink
I'm sorry for the bricks I've beaten my head against
for the electricity that's seared my flesh
for the falaka that beat my naked soles
for a heart I've let fall in love-oh

I'm sorry for this rage fine enough to whet a knife
for the ingrown explanations hidden deep inside
burning me downright

you my darling: you're lovely. that is true
but are you more lovely because my face is sad and blue
because my boyish face wilts in such melancholy for you
with my ever-more-childlike visage reflected upon yours

I'm sorry for the morning outcries
that rouse me from my nightmares
for plundered streets in Pera the heart of Istanbul
is it because I'm so like you
that I hold my tongue-wincing at the billy-clubs descending
blow after blow upon faces of destitute glue-sniffing kids

I'm sorry

it was birdsong echoing favorite melodies
summoning me unwonted to the branches of the trees
that waylaid me. to the mountainous slopes I ran madly
only whispering what I should have cried aloud. I'm sorry

I'm sorry: for being a liar with no refuge in his lies
for remaining silent in the midst of all my crimes
for returning to the sight of bloodshed
unable to rouse myself and flee taking you along with me

or is it perhaps for scrawling your name onto napkins
for not even once lifting my arms in dance
flexing my knees and with joy on my face

I'm sorry if I'm disturbing you today my darling
by awakening you to a rather early breakfast

men with balconies devoid of flowers are often unhappy

Translated by Suat Karantay
"Üzgünüm," Aşkkıran (2002 - first edition 1997).
Istanbul: Piya Kitaplığı, pp. 14-15.

LONELINESS BETWEEN THE LEGS

shatter-buddha of the green glance shimmering with silk
a riddle that fills itself with poison
keep silent don't speak to anyone
shred that possibility just drink your genever and think
they make loneliness begin between the legs
shred it shred the person and the khaki belly-ache
shred the night shred the sheets and follow your fate

do it just like that: just like the string from a guitar
sever yourself from yourself like the severed earthworm
swallow yourself in one gulp give your heart a reprieve
swallow your voice shred the silence and spit out your lungs
with a cough spit out the world: just like that
get out and let the duisberg planet fuck off
don't put up with yourself you're no great prize
don't use the telephone don't trust in love or beget children
stretch out on the railway tracks and if you feel like singing
go out in the rain wet your head and fly as high as the moon
don't give flowers to any sweetheart forget you're in love
and don't tell a soul but hold onto your prick

sever once and sever again and let the guitar string sever
shred love and shred that final penchant of your body
it's nothing but an old tale belonging to those who told it
don't work in the economic sections of newspapers
go out in the wind and on the most fragile of the branches
build your dream and fall like raindrops into your own heart
search for your fate on mountaintops stand closer to the moon
exist like the frail primrose in this isolation of yours
blow bubbles and sing songs without meddling with anyone

if mankind makes loneliness begin between the legs
cough it up and spit out the whole world: just like that

Translated by Suat Karantay
"Apışarası Yalnızlığı," Aşkkıran (2002 - first edition 1997).
Istanbul: Piya Kitaplığı, pp. 39-40.

THE BED

escaping to the far corner room of the night
my face appears like death in other faces

flowers on the branch do not define the tree
resemblance is but a strange game of grief
while I cannot yet picture separation
here comes love sneaking into my heart

as the secretive and bitter night approaches
I curl up into this fetal position of mine
I haven't got a single thing to tell my djinns
with the night so dark there and the moon casting
shadows of death onto the skirts of my mountain
those old memories keep surging in

when the shadowy tunnels of friday night leading
on to sat'day come I assume a fetal silence

and just as I know the earth begets its blossoms
and I know what fire is although I am no dervish
if I'd been a corsican I'd have turned to poetry
but the water flows and my tale passes
while even the oleander takes heart

in the night shining so bright on each link in the chain
I curl into my very own fetal position in vain

and falling flat on my face on the heels of the night
I keep tossing my body to the other side
soon this bed will burst into flame
and whatever of me that remains

the night is still young so I wish it would stretch out
beyond the light and deep into the well of love
I dare say to the scariest of winds and
even the bed takes on a new hope

thus to myself I say
reaching out into the realms of poetry
why not, I'll just stretch out here diagonally

Translated by Suat Karantay
"Yatak," Ke Ke Me Ce (2002 -- first edition 2000).
Istanbul: Piya Yayınları, pp. 14-15.

A KITE SEVERED FROM ITS STRING

I represent a widely-traveled folk, you see:
tethered to the wild winds however they may blow and thus
thus it is that each infatuation consumes me devastatingly
and I revel in each Kurdish melody that echoes in the mountains

once upon a time I knew no love, I've learned, you see:
welcoming each flock of birds that's landed in my path and thus
thus it is that my life's erupted in this chaos of love's ecstasy
a penetrating outcry responding to every man's exigency
long ago I buried death deep within my heart, you see:
as fright descends ascends a moon to soothe my waters and thus
thus it is that the moonlight will kiss the wounds of the mountain-star
and the melodic refrains of a folk tainted by the venomous aloe

fire burns they say if so let it scorch me, you see:
even at the young age of seventeen I stepped onto the gallows, and thus
thus it is that on the mountaintops though blood may stain my dreams
fires shall be lit and the snow shall melt and snowdrops greet the sunbeams

my life is a dagger protecting the long-distance traveler, you see:
the cyanide clenched lovingly between my teeth serves but the same purpose
proceeding towards death I then hang a "laughing flower" about my neck
thus it is that my life is now a kite severed from its string

thus it is that my life is a kite now severed from its string

Translated by Suat Karantay
"İpi Kopmuş Uçurtma," Aşkkıran (2002 -- first edition 1997).
Istanbul: Piya Kitaplığı, p. 52.

THE WIND

drive me before your howl offended wind drive me
from this love from this community drive me
into the Amazon jungle you may cast me
to the furthest banks of the moon tribe
into the croak of the limpid-eyed frog cast me
in the unending mumbling rumble of the rain forest
drive me to a headline crime and broadcast my sad end

drive me into the world of the fictionist and dream on
raise me in rich soils scented with raindrops
to meadows of the purple dawns drive me
and make me the prey of the aborigines
of my destitute brother shooting with a bow
in my shade forget the water put the birds to sleep
and grant a long voyage to this voyager of the wind
to summer gold wish autumn that it may not wilt hurt
drive me before your howl offended wind drive me
drive me before your howl offended wind drive me
from this love from this community drive me
make me follow my voice broken though it may be
for remember there is a song all of us displaced know
drive me onward to my word stuttered though it may be

drive me to your howl offended wind drive me

Translated by Suat Karantay
"Rüzgâr," Ke Ke Me Ce (2002 -- first published in 2000).
Istanbul: Piya Yayınları, p. 38.

MY LAND, WHERE TO

The violet mountains
Shine like blood in my exiled land:
We have become migrants
From songless dersim;
I will return someday,
My voice will not stay homeless,
Will not whisper in exile

When winter fades, earth awakes
And the narcissus blooms,
The land turns to summer;
I who will return someday
Leave your name upon the mountains,
Rising from ashes in its own fire

My pain dies down, my voice
Finds its mother tongue
Through which gunshots echo:
I come down from the mountain
To fall under a wounded hyacinth:
I stay and wait for your spring:
My land where to

translation: e. yağmurdereli
graham mort

SEPTEMBER WAS DEATH

September was death in yhis land:
Let your heart flower as a rose

They shot your loved one dead:
You forget to cry, forgot to forgive
This murder
Knowing the day belongs to the oppressor

He was your son:
He is as dead as your faith was deep
You feel the voices of partisans screaming
Stabbing the black sea

He is dead:
Your cordite tears reek of the bullet
Let your pain remain, mother of senem
So that you heart will speak the word
Its your turn now, the sufferer
To pass judgement

translation: e. yağmurdereli
graham mort

TO KNOW YOU

Knowing you, touching against you
Was like seeing each rose for the first time:
I want to wear you on my chest
With the same love

You may try
My proud and patient mouth
To define that name:
Where does it come from-
The joy and pain of the flying birds-
Scattering your absence
Upon my crowding sorrows
Yet my disbelief in god
Was my mother's one regret
Might you forget
Knowing you, understanding the song
Which asked over and over:
"Where are your eyes"
All evening your eye was the weather
Which held me, which became my journal
My memory in this outlawed life
You were my shelter when I bled, always
You were my victory in june
For yur mout knew me and the rose:
It was such beauty, that knowledge
As the valleys sank into the fog
Which was dersim's history

To know you was the love of love:
Our child's sunburned lips touched your forehead
To know was to bind the wound, share separation
In the bare oppression where we lived:
It was to staunch defeat from speechless rivers
In the committees' all-night meetings
Plumbing the depths of your eyes with mine

Now you are here, you who I left
To silence seeping from under doors:
You are here, partisan of an outnumbered love
That knows no surrender

translation: e. yağmurdereli
graham mort

I ALSO CONSUME THE PAINS

It was not my first dumbness
My oppression from the pain
Love's artery floods underground:
Poet of the pulse
Poet of bleeding, putting his heart
Against the wind
My eyes burned when, shout by shout
I forgot the outcry
My songs fell silent
And my wounded smile returned

I an human:
To forget is suicide, bitter exposure
My heart lost in lonely mountains
Why cover the earth with my screams
Which word should I choose
Which call up
Will it come to the gates of my patience
Dizzy like the highest lark
Now my face in on trial
Hounted by those feelings:
My chest is burned so deeply
I cannot write the names of my comrades
I am lost in the night
The words in my mouth crazy as bats

This innner bleeding will flood
A river of rebellion
I will burn my elegy to ashes
Drink my tears, consume the pains

translation: e. yağmurdereli
graham mort

SUPPLICATION

I put my hand to my temple
In silence when you speak.
Unhurt, ı put my head
Into your palms
Beg you to tell me
About the eyes of a child
Whose father is imprisoned

translation: e. yağmurdereli
graham mort

NOTES OF A WOMAN FACED WITH DIVORCE

I.
no point in staying if I must fit into agendas I've
no place in: I know it
I'm leaving; unversed in the joy of parting I'll go
II.
I've spoken: your embrasure tires me and your hands show no feeling
your lips upon my breast conjure no longer the Mediterranean
let at least the joy of parting be ours I've said
the balance I've pondered endlessly
finding neither the love nor the time to banish your ache from my life

(all I could wish was that together we might survive a vanquishing defeat
as I trod even more cautiously along the cobbled pavements
haunted by the negligence of your tired hands
simply ignoring my body
I was hurt
and my voice was sorely hoarsened
even if I wished to how could I stay in your clime
tremors passed through my hands and without farewell
I simply left you… still unversed in what the joys of parting are like)

III.
during the first hearing I went nearly insane, criticized from many sides
only to go down in the record books as the trial was postponed
it was then that I postponed my urge to kill, the headlines
of my disgrace and womanhood were stilled
like a train changing tracks at full speed ahead you understand
how a life disgracing love could ever be cleared I'd no comprehension

no point in seeking refuge in memories I could claim
no place in: I didn't ask
how this young life of mine should fade but not yet wilt

I had however explanations for our history harboring pain
screaming out with the desire to silence my melancholy diary
should we part now, facing the masculinity of history
I must remain a pouting child or a river rippling in discontent

IV.
I'd tried life out, for not forced to be like anybody but myself
I loved and lived my way with sun and smiles and kisses
hopelessly entangled by a lovebird's coos and whispers
I lay suspiciously susceptible
soon I'd been deceived
I loved like a being who dying still plans the next day

(clearly, my destiny was loving with all its ups and downs
to be betrayed and then be shattered into bits before I left
always striving for harmony no matter what
trying so hard to fit in I've mingled with the crowd)

V.
what if I should let myself be milked by someone in the
crowd in lust for love; once again
would I not pay this lying Shylock a high price in return
never, let me raise a toast to life but keep murder in my mind

(then… the rain let up or maybe my heart was only bleeding
maybe the planet Earth relaxed, at any rate you came
you came and now I will say openly
enough is enough… I'll say
good-by to my tenacious and tenuous routine, I'm leaving
I'm leaving even if unversed in the joy of parting)

Translated by Jean Carpenter Efe
"Bir Kadının Ayrılık Notları,"
Birağızdan (2002 - first edition 1990).

MURMURINGS IN THE TER BRUGGE

each night in tongues unknown to me my heart
says to the numbered summer days that autumn's come
and dodging into the ter brugge I gnaw at my fingernails

there is nothing that I miss and no one whom I long to kiss
the home that I abandoned was never mine by any means
somehow homelessness has slowly slowly scorched my soul

neither a nationality do I crave nor yet a flag
nor do I crave a sweetheart since women always misbehave
they deceive my heart with flagrant lies they lead me to believe
why I'm hopeless in handling affairs of the heart I'll never know
what I wish to be is the cloud of a completely different sky
without becoming an Alaskan seal crowned over the head with a club
to have nothing more to pine for is yet another of my wishes
I'm as resentful of the birds as I am of rainfall and rivers
for static as a stone I can neither flow away nor flee nor fly

though my wearied body shows warning signs of cancer I'm not dying
more like my dad with each passing day I'm stubbornly more set on living
real fatherhood I do not see despite children born to me unwillingly
each and every fragment of the broken mirror I have within me's crying
but I go on living even though the mirrors inside are shattering
going on forty can I stop the whole world from disintegrating

yes, I'm every bit as tense as a bird who's lost its perch
whatever I said ten years ago, one question still remains:
even if to be forgotten, had I ever such a place

though I'd never chew my left-hand nails now I'm gnawing at them
jazz I say to friends of mine who find dreams torn asunder
as for this shrinking frame of mine that I've let my lovers plunder
so much for that is what I say, at least I've managed this much
I'll hide out here in the ter brugge and gnaw my fingernails

Translated by Suat Karantay
"Ter Brugge Mırıldanmaları," Aşkkıran (2002 - first edition 1997).
Istanbul: Piya Kitaplığı, pp. 53-54.

STORIES

mehmet çetin

STORY:

DOES WHAT WE CALL A HUMAN
RESEMBLE A CLOUD

a souvenir from Dersim in memory of Sewusen…

Actually, there never was anyone called Delican; this "Mad-John" was no more than a touched cloud.

Listen to me, he'd say; I was a deceived child in my previous life. You must listen, he meant. I have no place to call my own, don't prod me any longer with your bayonet. I have suffered too much grief... too long ago I killed and they killed my childhood and I have been left touched, ahh lacêm ca perskena, houkı ma diya qı keş nediya, by which he meant much more, though he held his tongue. Then, looking back to the days of life and death from which he'd been resurrected, stop, he'd say, startled. Fling up your hands, hide your eyes, and hold that position! May no one look upon this corpse of mine, Delican would continue. It was as if what he really wanted to say was: Don't let anyone look upon my dead body, don't look!

Havaar, havar...
It is a rare soul who knows of it.

My dear and respected friend, once Delican had said this, he'd define time with a terrible cry and would complete what he wanted to say; thus everyone would hear, but wherefore this cry, it's a rare soul who knows the reason behind it. I wouldn't find it at all strange if you say you haven't heard of it. You come from the Mediterranean; from that great distance you were taken in your childhood. You've grown up in exile in this foreign city. You've grown up at a distance keeping your silence. You've grown up concealing your native language, fearing "Kurdo… Kurdo" reproaches. You were always the one unable to find a friend to speak your own language with, the one suppressing your shame and hiding away inside. You've learned Turkish only later. When you first started school you were the one pulling at the teacher's skirt -was it because you couldn't figure out how to address her? You were the one who never tired of dreaming of the nights, the days, the countryside and the peers you grew up with in your own hometown. You were the one to follow up these images you'd collected in the heat of the Mediterranean and finally to return to your city after so many years.

My dear friend, yours is a different story, very, very distinct. You may attempt to tell your story, perhaps; it may be understood if you tell it. However, Delican can't tell his. There are few who can even understand his words. Everyone interprets his story the moment they set eyes on him. Anyway, how can the previous life of a touched cloud be told? There are few who even understand his "Listen to me; I was a deceived child in my previous life."

My friend, you can't imagine how Delican grumbles, "I wish I hadn't awakened this morning," and can't help wondering where he's come from. Likewise, you won't understand why there are so many touched ones in this city, why they're called "touched" instead of "mad." The touched ones of this city are never sent to a mental hospital. Why? Why does Musa Bey always wear a suit? Changing his clothes every day he puts on his clean, freshly ironed clothes of the 1950s and comes to the teahouse and drinks his tea. Without uttering a single word to anyone he gets up and leaves. You never know why no one's ever heard Musa Bey utter a single word.

You wouldn't know that he was an aviation engineer, that he considered himself responsible for an accident resulting in the death of many and went out of his mind, that the spirits of the dead had paralyzed his tongue or he simply punished himself by not speaking at all. You don't know our Kartal who makes the crowd join in his laughter, do you, my dear friend?

You probably haven't heard the adventures of our eagle who takes very, very long steps swinging his very, very long arms. It was one of those days the city was under very strict martial law; picture a cool summer night with Kartal about to set out along the riverbank for a nearby village. The soldiers gave him a "halt" command, but Kartal, not accustomed either to being stopped or shouted at, became skittish and frightened, ran away, and found himself under fire. You probably haven't heard, have you, that the bullets couldn't reach Kartal, even that salvo, that he turned back from afar to say, "I've had your mothers-and how! I've wasted your ammunition-and how!" You wouldn't be able to picture what a child he was among the children, for whom he'd keep trying to pronounce "tortoise" at their insistence. "Turtuz" came out and then "tortiz… tortiz… tortiza... tortuaza…" Despite being such a child with the children, he was never on good terms with the government; even the touched in this city weren't at peace with the government.

My dear friend, you didn't know Fatin, either, did you? Fatin, whose sole anxiety was the fear of being enlisted? If you'd go and tell him they wanted to call him into the military, but you'd talked to the commander who promised to let him go for a five hundred thousand-note, he'd believe it. He'd rush off in a tizzy to find that money. However, he'd never be able to find it because he is one of the poorest in the city, one of the two street porters of the city... the other is İhsan, mentally retarded. Both are poor and both are touched and they're good friends. One has two sacks of flour on his back; the other, two sacks of sugar, and the two meet in one of the city streets that come quickly to an end. The moment they meet, no matter under what circumstances, they stop and talk. They never complain about the great load on their backs... they forget about it and talk on and on. What they have to say is only their business, as are their quarrels…

It is necessary to get to know the touched ones of this city, my friend, it is necessary to know and understand them. Then too, you should know Foterli, and then, the "Skeleton" and his touched assistant. He's a teeny tiny man who speaks a blue streak and spends the whole day running from one shopkeeper to another. He quickly stammers "Give me money, give me money," and because everyone knows what he's after, five-lira notes are handed to him. Once he has his five liras in hand, a long and hasty race begins, a rush from shopkeeper to shopkeeper asking each and everyone to "exchange… exchange" his five-lira-notes because he's in such a great hurry. Going around till he finds a new crisp one, he then puts it into his wallet and starts his second round from wherever he's left off. This is what he does all day long without tiring; but once evening falls, as if overwhelmed by his blood, he finds Skeleton or Skeleton finds him and takes from his hand the crisp, razor-edged five-lira-notes he's collected in his wallet.

I've told you, haven't I, how one needs to know the "touched" of this city, my friend, listen to me: Delican who wants to say "I was a deceived child in my previous life" is one of the touched in this city. It is a rare soul who knows his story.

It is a rare soul who knows why he went crazy…

Some supposed it was a summer night long ago. At Bükboyu, a pheasant in hand, he touched Gülcan's hair and kissed her on the spot. Even in the silence of the woods that summer night with the moonlight mingling in the river, the moonlight was enough to give Delican away. He was just leaving his childhood years behind; he was very ashamed of being seen. He was quite frightened that it might lead to a blood feud; they thought that was the reason he ran away from the village and went to the city.

By the time he returned to the village, the heat of several summers had passed since he'd left; when Delican came back to the village as a young man having reached the proper age for marriage, the moment he came back having saved up enough money-if not to marry Gülcan in the name of God-at least for engagement, he learned that someone had died in the village and that the soil on the grave was still fresh and finally that it was Gülcan, who was heaped with reproach after he himself had run away from the village and humiliated because he himself, namely Delican, hadn't asked for permission to marry her. Then not being able to endure a forced marriage-as if a widow-to a man much older than herself, she'd poisoned herself. At the moment he learned of it, Delican went out of his mind as the soil upon her grave swelled and some thought his name was Delican from that day on, but they were wrong...

Later on one summer night-some supposed it was again a summer night long ago-Delican pushed open the door of his home in Bükboyu with a pheasant in hand; he now had a home, children, and a wife who was lovely, attractive and somewhat flirtatious. He found his wife frolicking with someone just in front of the pantry; he looked and saw that it was his brother. In other words, he'd caught his wife frolicking with his own brother. Some supposed it was at that moment that he went out of his mind. He raised the axe in the air and immediately lowered it. As he was gazing down at the bloodied corpse of his own brother born of his own mother and his own father, they assumed his wife ran away and saved her skin… that he was imprisoned and released after counting long days, that he went to the sacred judges of the day, demanding that a higher court deal with the case and try his wife, but he was ignored even by these masters, which he found beyond endurance; they supposed he couldn't contain his wrath;

he more he was ignored, the more frayed he became; the more frayed he became, the more he avoided people and began to resemble a cloud, speaking to himself at a distance so that people began to pity him, first consoling him with drink then offering him more and more so that he ended up as an alcoholic distant from human beings and thus he went crazy, they supposed, but they were wrong.
You know, my friend, there was a bloody defeat following the days of the revolt. On the days when the caves along the Laç valley were bombarded and the odor of the scorched human flesh mingled with babies' cries, they supposed those shrieks have been left with Delican until today. The scarring from burns on his face was left from the gasoline poured down the cliff-side and lit to incinerate the people, and the scar on his breast left from a bayonet during that bloody silencing; they thought Delican was explaining this when he said lacê me ca perskena houkı ma diya nâ dinade qı keş nediya.

My friend, what does this thing we call a human resemble?
Delican couldn't explain.

He is old now. They thought he had always been old. He always appears in the restaurants, they put food before him; he sits and eats as if he is in a great hurry, and suddenly jumps up to leave as if he must immediately go somewhere. No, my friend, no one would refuse him a morsel. Nor cigarettes, nor tea, nor clothing… Whenever he wanted a smoke, he'd take a cigarette out of the hand of a person passing by and would smoke it; smoke it as if kissing it, as if kissing... Supposing that he wanted a drink and people are sitting around a table, drinking and chatting. He'd approach and pick up someone's glass, drain it and retreat at the same speed at which he'd come. People would look at his back with a smile or they'd tease him. Howsoever, he'd neither hear nor pay attention.

Delican was self-sufficient in his loneliness.

He couldn't explain. He'd always talk to himself, but they couldn't understand him. No, he wouldn't dress in white. He'd tie up his pants with a string, his zipper was always down. He'd make water wherever and whenever he pleased. He was privileged. He had paid his price. Could it be that he made water more often when there were women around? Or he'd occasionally feel an urge; it sometimes happened that he'd walk up and embrace a woman from behind without minding her laughter-like cries. Then he'd turn and spit over his shoulder.

Was it because this aroused a suspicion that he wasn't at peace with women or was it only after he'd embraced an officer's wife from behind and then spit that he was declared mad? That they wanted to take him off and shut him up in a mental hospital? Yet neither Delican nor the townspeople here would hear of it. Delican returned to his city. He returned and from that day on no one would ever have been able to put him in a vehicle that opened from behind like an ambulance or a police wagon. At such a moment he'd beat on the windows with strange cries, for example, and attack the people around. Whereas Delican hadn't ever previously been aggressive at all, not at all.

Since that time Delican kept living in his own way, kept walking on his own path. He'd generally even go without shoes. They bought him shoes, but he kept on walking barefoot even at the cost of a wounded and bruised pair of feet.

Delican is a Kırmanç you know, my friend; he wouldn't give up speaking his own language. Even though what he was talking about wouldn't be understood most of the time, he speaking as he pleased. He'd be understood only now and again when he said çenî çenî çenamına rındekamı ahh dıle dıle ciğeramı dıle... or lacême çâ perskena huokı ma diya nâ dinade qı keş nediya, but most often when he said: Listen to me, I was a deceived child in my previous life, you must listen, stop, don't, I have no place to call my own, stop don't prod me any longer with your bayonet. I have suffered too much grief... too long ago I was killed and today, I have been left touched today, ahh don't, don't let anyone look upon my dead body, don't look! Hold up your hands, cover your eyes. May no one look upon this corpse of mine. It was as if what he really wanted to say was: Don't let anyone look upon my dead body, don't look! He wanted to say, but they didn't ever understand, never…

Delican couldn't explain.

Actually, there's no longer anyone called Delican, my friend, he's a touched cloud; there is a rare soul who knows it.

He couldn't explain.

There's something strange on his forehead, they said, it must be a secret, they said, the kiss of an anafatma flower, they said, they were inclined to make a legend of it. That wasn't enough, either; they chose to feed him, to look after him. Whether it was because he was a joy to the small city or because they wanted to amuse themselves, they neglected neither his welfare nor his legends. You know, my friend, Delican would generally sleep under the overhang of the sole Turkish bath in the city. As he slept there on winter days, it would snow, of course, it would snow to the right and to the left of Delican but never upon him, never… he'd wake up just as he'd gone to sleep.

Delican was a story in the legends of the city.

It was September, as far as is known, my friend; the chill of the early autumn days hadn't yet descended from the peaks of Delidağ. The riverbanks still preserved the warmth of the foregoing summer. On one night during those days, on the night that had brought on the day when I had to leave the city, Delican slept under the branches of a willow tree on the riverbank. In the early hours of the morning, he woke up and came into the city. With his sleepy eyes generally only slightly open, he started to climb the streets leading up to the main square of the city. In the silence of the streets he came, chattering to himself. He came with gestures of his arms that no one could understand, but that each interpreted differently. He came incessantly pulling one hand through his hair. He came murmuring one of the tunes he'd repeat without ever becoming tired of them. He came tête-à-tête with himself because he actually never looked to his right or left as he walked. He came without speaking to the people on his right and on his left because there was nobody around.

Speaking to himself on behalf of a city, Delican approached the square; coming up the slope, he raised his head to gaze at Delidağ. At that moment he became frightened again, fındıre fındıre, he said; stop, stop, he wanted to say after his sudden fright; don't, he said, I have no place to call my own, don't prod me any longer with your bayonet, I have suffered too much grief...

Suddenly he noticed that he was all alone, he looked around, and there was no one at all passing by to ignore or wonder at his words or to smile and tease him. He had never noticed whether there was loneliness or crowdedness at this hour of the morning in the streets he had just passed through; he found it strange. This time there weren't any of the sights he was accustomed to seeing at the intersection of the streets, he didn't understand. There was no one from whom he could take a cigarette without even a glance at his face, a cigarette to smoke as if he were kissing it. The restaurants where he could sit and eat, where he never found it necessary to ask for something, weren't open. The teahouses where he could go and drink tea weren't open. The stools left outside in the evening lay scattered, as if intensifying the desertion even more...

Delican wasn't accustomed to this, he wasn't accustomed to stopping, to stopping, looking and asking why. He must have been desperate for a smoke followed by a tea, then a stroll through the square and finally a restaurant… where was everybody? His irritation soon turned to deep fright; he had no idea what to do with his hands. He raised them and put them on his head and stood like that for a while.

As he looked around, his eyes took on the color of the mountains left fading in the sunset.

Delican kept silent; in silence he raised his arms and shut his eyes tightly. It was as if he didn't want to see, he didn't want history to repeat itself here in front of his eyes. His tightly squinted eyes didn't suffice, however. With his hands he covered his face, the bitter lines of which were deepening minute by minute, and especially his eyes; he cringed. He doubled over. He cringed, doubled over with pain as if he'd been stabbed in the chest. He buried his face still tightly clasped in his hands on the ground. He wanted to spare his eyes the sights on the face of the earth. He waited. As he waited he began to tremble. His trembling increased more and more. Then...
Havaar, havar!

Then an infinite cry filled the time and space of the morning; fall, he said, bitch, he said, eyvaah… I wish I hadn't awakened this morning, just gone on sleeping. Is it thirty-eight again, what is going on? Havaar, havar…
My friend, few people know how much later it was that Delican raised his head, his face covered with a beard that had suddenly turned white, and looked at the crowd gathered on the square where the morning desolation of the streets ended. He watched with the lines on his face changing and deepening every moment. He watched with bloodshot eyes from the days at the river Laç.
He didn't just look.

Delican didn't just look. He arose from where he had fallen and with long steps entered the square. It was as if he were challenging everyone in the square. He saw the tanks, he saw the military trucks, he saw only men in uniform. In the hands of the men in uniform there were guns. On the tip of the guns there were bayonets. On the tips of the bayonets he could picture the frozen first smiles of babies. Raids of the villages. Gasoline poured over the people heaped one upon another and fire and cries and ash… people retreating to the mountains, people defending their rights at the cost of their lives. And a scorching and destructive defeat like death itself... he looked and couldn't endure looking any longer. Among the commands, cries and shouts Delican had no time to see the tips of the guns pointed at him.

He went on. He went on to seize one of the uniformed men by the collar. With his eyes blinded by blood, he could see no more. Among those who felt no surprise at Delican's behavior and those who didn't know Delican and were ready to shoot him, Delican called out to the man in the collar he had seized.
Commander, does what you call a human resemble a cloud, you, Commander... he meant: where are the people…where have they been from dusk to dawn… where are my servants? Does what you call a human resemble a leaf fallen into the swift-moving current of a river, they're gone…where are my servants?
Stop giving commands, Commander. What Delican wanted to say was, tell me, may this touched soul not smoke a cigarette, may he not have a bite to put into his stomach? Is every place closed that he can't have a tea? Have they been swallowed up by the earth, where have my servants gone? Were you gambling with them last night, where are they? Is it thirty-eight again, what is going on, what?

Payız, Delican wanted to say, that bitch of an autumn...
Stop shouting, Commander, he said, stop shouting commands. These mountains won't bow before you, this Delican won't bow... stop giving commands, Commander, my servants don't know how to bow at your feet, don't shout in vain... tell me where my servants are, where are my people? Is it again thirty-eight? Havaar, havar…
My friend, Delican was speaking with a howl that was drowning out his own voice. He was speaking as if swept into some eternal giddiness. Both his hands were on the collar of the man in uniform. It seemed to Delican that Delidağ was spinning around, and the ash trees on Delidağ-like leaves from the ash trees swept off by the wind-were swirling in the air; Delican had no more strength to withstand.
There was no one called Delican anymore, there was but a touched cloud.

His hands were torn from the collar of the man in uniform, he was knocked down by the sudden stroke of a rifle butt. With blood dribbling down his temple… before vanishing into a touched cloud, Delican rose from the ground like a bloody cry from the pages of history. Delican took a long look at the barrels pointed at him and said, alas, this is again the epoch of thirty-eight, time again has his hands handcuffed behind him.
Havaar havar...
At that moment he turned his face towards Delidağ, he described the September morning with a long wail and completed his days on earth.
It is a rare soul who knows it.

There was no one called Delican anymore, there was but a touched cloud.

My friend, do you remember, Delican would say, "Listen to me, I was a deceived child in my previous life, you must listen, he meant; stop, don't, I have no place to call my own, stop don't prod me any longer with your bayonet. I have suffered too much grief... a long, long time ago I was killed and, I have been left touched today, ahh… don't, don't let anyone look upon my dead body, don't look! Hold up your hands, cover your eyes. May no one look upon this corpse of mine… It was that same morning when there was nobody to understand what he meant to say that I left the city.

Then, on the summits of the mountains towards which Delican turned his face, there were incessant night blazes, and fireflies incessantly lighting themselves to set the night afire.

The rest is a myth.

From that day onward, they say, a cloud has circled round the top of Delidağ as if touched... blood dripped over the city from this cloud prodded with the point of a bayonet.

From that day onward each person in the city looking at this touched cloud circling the summit of Delidağ began to ask one another.
What is this flower we call asmin, let's not forget it.
Does what we call a human resemble a cloud?

Translated by Esra Çarşıbaşı and Jean Carpenter Efe
"İnsan Dediğimiz Buluta Mı Benzer," Asmin (1997).
Istanbul: Zed Yayın, pp. 28-38.

STORY:

LET US FORGET

To Levos in memory of the old Georgian…

SENECA
We're theaters grand enough to satisfy each other!

CHORUS
Let the man relive his childhood one last time before death. We'll depart when the sea rises. We've come here for the story of humanity. Why, because he's called to us with a voice become childlike in old age, with pebbles and seaweed in his mouth he called to us and we've come.

THE OLD GEORGIAN
I'm returning to my childhood. To the riverbanks, to the time just before Delihafız saved my life. We'd climbed down from the mountains. It was autumn, chilly... it was raining, and I was cold. My brother gave me his jacket. I put it on. It was too large for me, my hands were lost in the sleeves. It was just before I disappeared in the waters. We'd been collecting pine resin. It had been raining on the riverbanks. I'd become cold. We wanted to reach the opposite shore. It was calling, and I walked forward; it snatched me, suddenly the river carried me off. I was floating face down in the water.
Don't you know what a needlefish is?

CHORUS
The sea is rising... the gleam from the last lighthouse will soon fade too. These last waves sorely beat at the breakwater, the sea is coming nearer. Once again a man retreats, changes names with the needlefish.
Let him relive his childhood one last time before death...

THE OLD GEORGIAN
I didn't understand what was happening. My eyes were still open but I couldn't see anything. My brother's jacket had turned inside out, swept over my head it covered my face. I was breathing the air inside that hollow. I was floating away. I was too young to understand what was going on. Before I had time to understand, something snagged me. My arm was caught in a cleft the river had carved in the rock. Part of my body was there... it was a waterfall; the other part hung over the crest in the torrent. I was almost killed. If Delihafız hadn't been in time... I was a child. After all, what is it that we call a child?
What is it that I call the southwest wind, the Lodos... what is it that I call Alaz, the flame?

ALAZ
Lodos arrived; he asked if I'd heard about my father. What, I said, how would I have heard anything? It's been so long since either you or I have seen him... He left home, they say. He said he was going to find his children and simply left the house... Where? Where to? To the sea, he said; I'm going to the sea to find my sons... I've missed them, he said; I'm going...

CHORUS
His hands are as impetuous as the seabirds... he wants to caress the fleeting faces of his sons with his hands... their flight is like the wind, like a cloud passing absent-minded over the earth, his hands don't reach far enough... his hands age once more and become a darkness he's unfamiliar with-he now has sea urchins in his hands...
A voice which will rend the fishermen's nets will soon issue from his mouth. That's because the sea is rising... Let him relive his childhood one last time before death...

ALAZ
Following Lodos:
I am in Üsküdar. Üsküdar was even older than we were though not aware of it. I am in the marketplace, where the merchants are all male and Muslim; I'm in the midst of cries: Come, Missus-Pick out what you want, Missus-Buy yourself a bargain, Missus. I was looking around. I didn't see anything. I was no shopper, either. The necks of the lookouts had grown longer and longer; they were out in search of "suspicious individuals" again, they were on the lookout, I was the one they were looking for.
They didn't see me.

In the marketplace where all the merchants are still all male and Muslim, everything is female. I passed along without my eyes touching the women. Suddenly, walking becomes recalling as I reach the fork in the road. I arrive at the junction of two streets; this is where we were raked with gunfire... it wasn't that day but later that Nevzat died. Did it rain after the bullets... I have forgotten. But I walked away towards those rocks from which I have just come...
There's nobody around.
It's a lonely word, this nobody. I shiver.

Needlefish, haven't you seen my father?

LODOS
This heavy smell-not content with making me feel sick-exacerbates my pain. I don't think I can bear it much longer. Again I recall that we humans are mortal; mortal immortals... I think of my father. I would expect such pain in my heart-but my kneecaps? I feel as if I can't walk. I can't forget my dream. But, son, I can't even wipe off the table anymore, my father was saying.
He was upset. He was pouting again and had taken one of his hands in the other... I couldn't breathe. What is this smell? It's suffocating me. Had my father reached this state of collapse because he could no longer make life easier as he used to?

SENECA
Think for once, how long it's been you've been busying yourself with the same things; not only the brave and the tragic, but also the bored long to die.

CHORUS
If a man isn't going to come back again, he'll change names with death... let him relive his childhood one last time...

ALAZ
A seaman my father was. A dock-man at the old ports... he'd fondle us with hands smelling of fish. He loved to talk with his hands, and with his eyes. He'd talk very little, he'd say very little about himself. During visiting days he'd stay back away from the grating and let others do the talking. He'd look on from afar, and with his love shining in his eyes.

I'm searching for my father. The longer I search, the more the notes of the piping ney recede.

THE OLD GEORGIAN
Let me look, just let me go and look-from a distance... I won't do them any harm. I'm going to go and find my sons. I can't even wipe off the table anymore. I'm going to go... no, I won't tell the story of all this, I'm sorry to say. I can't because my wife says I'm losing my memory. What story would anyone losing his memory have to tell! I don't have any memories, either. I'm sorry... I'm somewhere between existence and nonexistence. After one last question I'll be off:

You know the spot where the leaf is joined to the branch, don't you?

So, what is it I call the southwest wind… what is it I call the flame?

LIVIA
You Georgian, you, don't drive me crazy, stop this…

THE OLD GEORGIAN
Livia, as long as you live, don't ever forget the long years we've spent together! I'm off, goodbye!

LIVIA
Dear old Georgian, wait! Don't drive me crazy, stop… tell me, does the fig tree in the Athenian garden of Timon still stand in place? Believe me, I'm ready to go and hang myself. You stay here, I can't take it anymore. Where are you going, where… even if you go you won't find them. Even if you do… you might be followed, you might give them away…

Ah, it's your fault, Lodos… it's your fault, Alas, your faults…Is a revolution stemmed by always running away like this? You've left us alone, alone…

ROMAN PROVERB
The larger the city, the greater the loneliness!

ALAZ
I can hear the loneliness. The voice of the ney becomes long and drawn out.

Lying down to sleep seems unnecessary. Shall I rest my head on the table-away… is it the rocks I want to go to-to go to! There's a continuous pain in my left nipple… I take off my glasses to look at our lives.
We have been buffeted about.
Not only did children die. Mothers and fathers died as well. Even knowing this-and being aware that we have still more painful days to come-doesn't lessen the grief of not being able to find and hug my now childlike father.

The notes of the piping ney recede. I feel a loneliness, an infinite loneliness; I take it for my father. My existence is like the hysteria of a scream and I go on putting my life on the line.

THE OLD GEORGIAN
They say I'm acting like a little child. My wife's the one who says this, she with whom for forty years I shared a togetherness we never tired of. She dares to say that I've been losing my memory. That now and then I have a partial stroke, that there is arteriosclerosis or something in the vessels of my brain. The doctor's said I was in a state of yearning; should I have a son abroad, it would be good if he came home once in a while… So much the better, that's the reason I left home.
I'm searching for my sons.

Besides, if a man hasn't forgotten how to yearn, how can you say he's lost his memory?

LODOS
Alaz, looking at you is painful to me. You very much resemble our father. Our father who said in my dream-But, son, I can't even wipe off the table anymore… You pout the same way he does. You very much resemble him, especially when you are sad, like now, you express the responses of your body through your hands. You take one hand into the other pressing and rubbing your thumb in your palm. Whenever you become childish, the quivering of your lips is the same…

Alaz, looking at you is painful to me.
On rainy days we used to catch needlefish; they'd bite at the fishing line as they'd come along on the surface of the water, you know them… we were children, we didn't understand.

For some reason, looking at you now is even more painful to me!

ALAZ
Our childhood.
The seashore… ships came seldom on rainy days… we'd fish from a trawler… Father would come and pick us up at the shore. Hasn't he said he'd go to the sea… that he'd look for us at the seashore?

I don't understand… if a man hasn't forgotten the sea how can one assume he's lost his memory…

RITSOS
Darkness.
It's like a long evening slowly fragmenting.

THE HOLY BOOK
My God, come and set me free!

LIVIA
He's gone!

CHORUS
At first those sailor's lanterns he'd given to the children lighted the way for the old Georgian, and he walked; with hasty steps he passed by the men at the rocks, with the streets and the rain and the loneliness he reached the sea, and while passing by, he posed one question.
Do you know what a needlefish is?

He went on until he came face to face with the sea. It was raining; while passing, he made a request of the rainbirds.
I'm searching for my sons. They once heeded the call of the Sirens and went. I too want to go… he said; take me, take me to them…

THE OLD GEORGIAN
Take me. I am plunging into despair…

CHORUS
Once again a man retreats, changes names with the needlefish.

ALAZ
A seaman my father was. A dock-man at the old ports... but he doesn't know how to swim! How will he enter the sea from the shore… he'd never tell anybody that he doesn't know how to swim… he wouldn't say he was yearning, either, because he wouldn't open his mouth; he wouldn't want to be a burden, make the load heavier, would he?
How childish!

CHORUS
Let him relive his childhood one last time…

LODOS
I think that people who don't know yearning must be happy. At least they're less unhappy. That's because yearning is unhappiness, a long and time-told deception… you escape from the fire and you think that you've reached the water, perhaps the ocean… but no; this time you're burning in another fire. As if it's the loneliness of your steps going on and on along the cliffs… it's not; loneliness too grows old. You know this. But… yearning?
No, don't let our yearning resemble a yearning for someone who has deceased!

It's difficult to bear… If not difficult then painful; a pair of eyes will burn and disappear, not seeing… the hands will stay, motionless; whatever they may touch will become a memory at once, but they won't touch anything… you think that words have vanished, the sea has vanished… the childhood you spent at the seaside is but an old memory, what memories are left, what else…

THE OLD GEORGIAN
I have neither a story to tell nor any memories. They have vanished!

VESPASIAN
I must be becoming an immortal.

CHORUS
The old Georgian has drunk from the water of Lethe; he has forgotten his past. Forgive him.

THE OLD GEORGIAN
I'm sorry. I won't be able to explain. I have neither a story to tell nor any memories. I can't even wipe off the table anymore. My wife said that I've been losing my memory... Now and then I have a partial stroke… there is arteriosclerosis or something in the vessels of my brain.
I've run away. I'm searching for my sons. They heeded the call of the Sirens and went. I've come to the rocks.

To our childhoods, perhaps… I can't find you… have I passed across… to where I don't know… I went to look for you… you weren't anywhere I went… I won't harm you, will I… but how is this possible; if I haven't forgotten my yearning, if I haven't forgotten you… I came… to our childhoods, perhaps… to the riverbanks… but I lost my way… I was lost…

I was lost. I shed tears.

You know the spot where the leaf is joined to the branch, don't you?
So, what is it I call the southwest wind… what is it I call the flame... my children?

CHORUS
Has he who was going to die died? Because the sea has arisen... if you come late, make sure your yearning does not resemble a yearning for someone who has deceased.

HORACE
After death one shall be remembered with love.

LIVIA
But hold on... look, it's raining... isn't this autumn?

PLUTARCH
Autumn too is beautiful for the deceased.

CHORUS
We came here for the story of this aged seaman. Why, because he's called to us with a voice become childlike in old age, with pebbles and seaweed in his mouth... we'll leave now that the sea has arisen.
He came closer.
To explain.

What we call Asmin is the spot where the leaf is joined to the branch; the leaf is almost severed, ready to cast itself into the water... it's a needlefish; it's been caught, it comes along on the surface of the water to its death… death; this is now an old Georgian's destiny; with his yearning he is a mortal... a mortal…

Let us secure him; soothe him,

sing him to sl

LET US FORGET!
Translated by Bilge Kıral and Jean Carpenter Efe
"Unutalım," Asmin (1997). Istanbul: Zed Yayın, pp. 11-19