Love Requires Two People

Por: Ataol Behramoglu

Ataol Behramoglu  was born in Çatalca, Turkey, in 1942. He is a poet, essayist, playwright, literary critic, university professor, translator, cultural and political activist. Part of his youth was spent in exile in Paris and Moscow, for political reasons. He belongs to the coordinating committee of the World Poetry Movement and Co-organizer of the International Poetry Festival of Izmir. He won the Lotus Prize for Literature in 1982 and The Great Prize of Poetry 2003, by Turkish İnternational P.E.N.

He has published the books of poetry: Neither Rain… Nor Poems, 1976; During the Siege, 1978; The Epic of Moustapha Suphi, 1979; Quatrins, 1980; The Babies Do Not Have Nations, 1988; You Are My Beloved, 1993; Love Requires Two People, 1999; Gazal of a New Love, 2002; and I've Learned Some Things, 2008.

In his words: "People have always expressed their emotions, worries, joys, especially and more clearly for poetry. This means that regardless of the social and political circumstances, poetry always be necessary. Even if all forms of art experience a loss of importance over time, poetry, as a way to face the universe and destiny, always maintain its role as a destination fellow for the human beings."  

                                                                  Took from www.turkishclass.com

Love Requires Two People

Direction of wind changes 
Leaves fade suddenly 
Ship loses its way on the sea 
looks for a harbor in vain 
Laughter of a stranger 
has already stolen your lover; 
The poison gathered in you 
will kill only itself 
The only thing experienced alone is death 
Love requires two people 

Even its a memory did not remain 
from lovemaking during nights 
The skin I touched thousands times 
the poems you can write is thousands year far. 

Secretly My Love

Dreams, even, wait for the night 
to appear secretly 
you, in my heart, in the secret place inside of me 
Secretly my love 

Nobody knows my sadness 
I carry this feeling as my death 
in the most secret quiet and secluded part of my life 
There is a place where my love, secretly, sleeps 

Secretly my love, bitter as life itself 
As longing burns my soul 
i yearn in this deep dissappearing (life) 
Secretly my love 

You Are My Beloved

You are my beloved, you don’t have time to think who you are, 
instead of thinking the things to do 
Inside the crowded, a one from the crowded 
A star in a night, like a lost childhood 
You are my beloved, kissing your white teeth, a verse is hiding there 
From the last nights unfinished making love. 

You are my beloved, my raucous love, boiling youth 
I am flying you to your childhood 
Your wings get tired, you are all wet...sweaty 
In the night you wake up screaming near me 
Every morning I wave my hands to your mixing with metal 

You are my beloved, sometimes we delay the love with putting a paper between it 
In the busses in the train, is lived secrectly 
And without getting boiled alltogether side by side 

There is One Thing I learned from What I Lived

There is one thing I learned from what I lived: 
When you live something, you must live it fully 
Your lover must be exhausted from your kisses 
You must be exhausted from smelling a flower 

One can look at the sky for hours 
One can look for hours at the sea, at a bird, at a child 
Living on this world is being one with it 
Growing unbreakable roots into it 

When you hug your friend, you must do it with all your power 
You must be in a fight with all your muscles, body and passion 
And when you lie on the hot sand, 
You must rest like a grain of sand, like a leaf, like a stone 

One must listen to all the beautiful music 
Such that the sounds, the melodies fill inside 

One must dive headfirst into this life 
Like diving from a rock into an emerald sea 

People you don't know must attract you to distant lands 
You must live with the desire to read all the books and to know all the lives 
You must exchange nothing with the happiness of drinking a glass of water 
But for all the happiness there is, you must be filed with the longing to live 

And you must also live grief, with honor, with all your presence 
Because grief also maturates one, like happiness 
Your blood must be intermixed with the large circulation of life 
The never ending, fresh blood of life must circulate in your veins 

There is one thing I learned from what I lived: 
When you live, you must live big, like being one with the rivers, the sky, and the whole universe 
Because what we call lifetime is a gift presented to life 
And life is a gift presented to you.

I Had Held You From Your Hand

I had held you from your hand...summer was fading 
Summer was fading, yet we were fading 
We had held summer from its hand 

You will come soon, we will look eachother 
We will look eachother, as both we exist or we don’t 
As both we exist or we don’t, we will kiss eachother 

Between us, the distance of the words never said 
Between us, the distance of the things never lived 
Feeling of the close seperations on our skin 

Life was fading, yet we were fading 
Near a sad shore of a sea 
Autumn was spreading like a dissease 

With its matured light, autumn 
And we, in front of the reaching seperations 
Wrapping with the winter feelings 

The cry of our child is coming from outside 

Translations by SuiGeneris

Si muero será un día al acercarse la tarde 21º Festival Internacional de Poesía de Medellin. Youtube/revistaprometeo
Poemas Revista Prometeo # 88-89
I´ve Learned Some Things Presentation. Utexas.edu

Publisedh at June 29th, 2015