Long Encompass Poems

Turkish Poetry Translations II

Çanakkale Sehitlerine
"For the Çanakkale Martyrs"
by Mehmet Akif Ersoy
loose English translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Was there ever anything like the Bosphorus war??
The earth’s mightiest armies pressing Marmara,
Forcing entry between her mountain passes
To a...

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Universal elegy grieves and yet embraces shifts of paradigm
New beginnings consciousness initiates comprehends and thus proceeds from
Illusion’s delusion collusions misconceptions in the irritating
Vortex whirlpool immanent void of false containment

Enlightenment modern postmodern retro visionary futuristic aspirations
Resound...

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We disagree
I want to breathe people
Feel a timeless, immortal pulse
My solitude is anonymous observation
Strolling in unnoticed contemplation through worlds stacked upon worlds
The Flâneuse
My sustenance is colorful variety
Diving into the expressionism of bizarre fringes
Taste testing any...

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Mehmet Akif Ersoy: Modern English Translations of Turkish Poems

Mehmet Âkif Ersoy (1873-1936) was a Turkish poet, author, writer, academic, member of parliament, and the composer of the Turkish National Anthem.



Snapshot
by Mehmet Akif Ersoy
loose English translation/interpretation...

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All that does encompass bespeaks wonder in everything
bubbling brooks and waterfalls does your glory ring
terrestrial and celestial ever fill our eyes with seeing
how can not it's splendor not fill our very being
 
raindrops in waters...

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They call them crushes because that's how you feel after the first "No". After they say that they don't feel the same way. And all of that after your entire world was minimized to encompass...

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Circa February 12th, 2122 ~ 10:30 PM

Equals twenty one thirty 22:30 military time
future time traveler looks back one century ago,
oceanic waterways overladen with green slime,
yours truly attempted crafting id est feeble rhyme
far from madding crowd,...

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I was listening to a Christian theologian friend of mine
speaking about the Messiah's,
and St. Paul's,
original intention when singing praises of God's here/not-here Kingdom,
and potential as a multiculturally inclusive Church,
as a countercultural extending family,
creolizing out to...

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Apologies are due
Apologies are due
yet I am not the one to say them
Apologies are due but
but I am not the one
not today to give them
Fir all I have to give is a need to vent
a...

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there are mornings that I wake
          within the confines of my bed
              ...

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Similar if not identical to last year...   
umpteenth heat wave since onset of summer...
sizzles Delaware Valley today August 26th, 2022

Said geographical area composed of counties
located in Southeastern Pennsylvania,
South Jersey, Delaware, and
Eastern Shore of...

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Umpteenth heat wave since onset of summer...
sizzles Delaware Valley today August 25th, 2021

Said geographical area composed of counties
located in Southeastern Pennsylvania,
South Jersey, Delaware, and
Eastern Shore of Maryland.

Sweltering temperatures
figuratively grip human zoo
bipedal hominids (yours truly,
an olive...

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"No poem can encompass mother in entirety.
A mother is too lofty to fit in a poem" -
Quote by author
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mother is an emotion
Mother is feeling
Mother is love
Mother is  ambition
Mother is a service
Mother is patience
Mother is...

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Cleanse me, oh Lord of righteousness
Mend me, oh God of saving graciousness
Believe in me, so I can fly into your cage
Reflect on me, so I can sprout like sage

Swim to me as I drown in...

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I awake
  in a thick cropse of trees,
meandering brook splashing nearby,
sunlight stabbing
   through the canopy
in thick rods filled with dust particles.

Cracking my neck
      I rise,
my skin 
...

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It’s an all too common mistake these days,
this belief society can ‘progress,’
that with the right laws and the right teachers
we can go beyond ‘better’ and even ‘best.’

This thought that humans can somehow be made
to improve...

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The heaven’s softly dawning light
Conflicts with the darkness of night
Reassuring the heart of God’s grace
Despite the melancholy of dusk’s face

Like a comfort, morning comes around
Destroying gloom of night that does abound
Painting the skies in azure...

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There is a place to call our own.
A sweet dwelling, with fields of daisies.
Golden perfume rising upward,
Spreading buds cloaked in sunny rays,
Only to impart us with
A romantic closing. Honey bees lazily
Buzzing upon the morning’s red...

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I hear some college students claim
they don’t stand against free speech,
all they want to ban is what’s ‘hateful,’
it will ‘improve’ society.

In truth they will do no such thing,
they serve a truly evil cause,
when they seek...

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I can't
Now that that name 
Has dominated my life,
An evensong with
Everlasting lyric
That at times when I may
Be still
I can recite through memory.
It is yet still new to me.
So many are the fresh syllables
That lay undiscovered...

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Descending,
  I manipulate and manoeuvre for the updraft
  Spluttering,
  I spiral down, then briefly up again, to glimpse a glowing sky
  Flapping,
  I fall forever faster, flat-eagled
  Plunging, 
...

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Where once verdant rolling highlands...

Spanned into infinite vista
far as these myopic eyes can see
now yellowing Whitmanesque
leaves of grass encompass field of vision.

Nary a dark dreadnaught cloud in sight,
nor unbeknownst if/when threatening storm
looms on horizon slaking...

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Inspired By Connie Marcum Wong's Poem "Dreams Of India"


                          ...

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My aunts mom passed away a couple of days back, and this poem is going to be written from 3 perspectives... Mine, my aunts, and my cousins. i have almost zero experience with death of...

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hear the phrase all of the time,
‘It doesn’t fit the narrative,’
used in news, academia,
and in political missives,
a phrase that I find curious
since so many do seem to yell
that the narrative they’ve chosen
outweighs even the world...

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