Long Vomited 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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A cool February evening Damian was
Asleep. He felt somebody rubbing 
His chest. "Leave me girl." Polly
Rolled out of bed and announced 
"Damian, you should move in with me!
I want you to move in! Wake up...

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I saw a girl at the museum. I had to take her number
It was like my heart woke up from a long slumber

She was admiring a Picasso painting.
 I knew nothing about art so I...

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Identity Apples

iam a fat skeleton, resurrecting 
from the sad memories of dada 
and dark mysteries of aminism 
iam buganda 
i bleed hope 
i drip the honey of fortune 
makerere, think tank of africa 
i dance...

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Being bullied to death by JAY TOWNSEND JOHNSON HENRY IDENTITY FRAUD it all began with my entering Montez Williams poetry contest after suffering severe mental breakdown writing poetry was comforting healing my son encouraged me...

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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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Exclusive Birth Rights

I am German and guilty as charged by history and evil parental culpability
privileged by life and proxy thus I refuse to forget ancestral perpetration
though I propose without any diminution that systematic genocide is...

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What if the incessant torture didn’t happen
so many dark times, but it’s unimaginable
for you to comprehend isn’t it?

No one knows, the tragedies that left me
so crippled, you can’t fathom, the depth of
the sins they committed...

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(continued from 'Son of Amattai - 1 of 2')

in the belly of the fish
Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord, his God,
Deep from the belly of leviathan.
“I cried out to you, Lord, in my distress,
For I...

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Hate is the souvenir from lips,
who echo darkness,
words like swords, piercing 
into soft flesh, hearts 
breaking beneath the weapon’s
sickening crack, words 
erasing the hope of ever
feeling worthy or worthwhile

Hate is the spiteful taste,
bitter as the...

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Part 1

One summer in our youth group was a boy
I met.  How I would love to understand
if what he’d felt was equal to the joy
that bloomed in me when he caressed my hand.

His elfin...

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Yes, the time had allowed another opportunity to be near you,
Though well heaven knows whenever you are near my fear crunches my breath,
Leaving me starving for you, and wanting nothing more than to flee…

I stood...

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III.
Christine began crying, Zack vomited,
Klaus couldn’t move as he stared at the mess,
only stammering,“W-what could do this?”
Surely no beat to which they could attest.

Then came a rustling up above the falls,
and their horror transformed into...

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I woke up from a dreamless sleep 
My vision came through fuzzy and confusing 
A cold, sharp ringing painfully pierced my ears 
And irritated every sense 
The familiar numbness stung my brain 
And caused a...

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THE ALIENS



Nobody really knew of their existence
 until the year 2626
Prior to that year it was merely speculation
From an old scientist's bag of tricks
Lutus does not lie in the habitable zone of its star
Yet it...

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A one eyed drunken pen stares at blank paper with blury vision It begins to stuble and trip as it walks on the lines, It vomits words unsettled in its abdomen the master of this...

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If only I could fly like the birds round 
The world in joy and excitement, i
Would have been the happiest animal on earth.
If only I have shell and wisdom like the Tortoise,
I would have been...

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What if the incessant torture didn’t happen so many dark
times, but it’s unimaginable for you to comprehend isn’t it?

What if there wasn’t such violence against me, I wouldn’t have
bled on those I loved most while...

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'Play back that sound',she explained with bitterness,
'What's wrong?',I questioned,
I found out that she was severally harrassed at a conference, 
"He won't be entertained by any room with his proposal",as she envisioned,
Just sitting on the bed,I...

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The girls, 
are growing up,
We forgot about that princess love, 
The waiting for men to cover our broken bodies in their poetry love,
We let go of swallowed silent prayers of wanting to feel “pretty” 
We...

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A twelve year old boy, village-bred   and  very shy
Having but token familiarity with buses, routes and places
Escorts his mom’s mom,  very sick and about to die
To the town forty kms and...

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KITTY

G.
A cat walked across the street
(After looking both ways).
It was a pretty Kitty.
There were trees across the street.
In the trees there were squirrels.
The squirrels raised families.
They ate acorns,
they made babies,
they slept.

PG.
A cat stepped across the...

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The era of catatonic self-destruction has risen yet again from boulder-blocked caves,
Whose cavernous stalactite incisors drip with the blood of thorny crowns,
Worn in punitive irony for the subversion of fertile inferiority,
Which, like rabbits, duplicates and...

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Jonah's Calling

A vision of Jonah I did not see,
Nor did I hear the Lord speak
(Who pitied the wicked city of Nineveh)
When He said to His servant, Jonah,
“Arise and go to Nineveh for me.”
“Set me free!”...

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'I don't want to burn...'

Otto flew onwards.
It was a joyous flight. 
Then trouble hit again. 
His other worst fear. 
Engine failure!
	
Must land.
Where where where?
Altitude has gone.

Trees are so close.
Wrong place to crash!
Touching close.

Want to close...

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