Long Wretches 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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“Through me you enter the city of woe
Trough me you enter the eternal pain
Through me you go to people lost below.

Justice inspired my highest factor reign;
I was created by act of divine,
Supreme wisdom and the...

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His words stung me, as the cries from the maelstrom seem to retort
Their scattered, foreign words and wails retching their say
I listened, almost mesmerized,
Pulverized

“Come,” Said he,
With threatening authority

Upwards, higher than the balcony from which we...

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Hannah, I haven't seen or heard you cry
not in the gray of winter day
or in the cold silence of our prisoner nights,
the others can hardly keep up with you on the marches
your face is changeless...

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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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"Strange Vampires"

all those years 
ago, when conspiracies
flourished around 
did we or didn’t we go 
to the moon, when we
were once human,
proved to be lies,
whichever way 
the dark shadows 
conveyed it.

the truth 
came out much later,...

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We will be the trustees of life's passions...
The villas of villainous Rome are burning behind me
from Capua to the Cisalpine Alps the skyline is smoldering from her savage sins,
monuments of luxury built, furnished,  and...

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WHY I LOVE NEGRO  SPIRITUALS   

I know why we sang those songs;
Why I LOVE NEGRO Spirituals-
I have a spiritual 
connection to
those songs we sang.
We sang out messages to the universe,
and to each...

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whosoever finds themselves muttering 
the process of their very own struggle “to be”
left in the woods for dogs,
face down in a gutter like poe &
drowning in one’s own vomit---
though
untainted by the neon strategies of western...

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Ashes,
Black, gritty, sooty signs
Painted on the foreheads
Of humanity parading about.
My thumb would be black
For several days following
The signing of so many foreheads,
The dark soot engrained
Within my right thumb print.

Ash Wednesday is a magnet
That draws people,...

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Note:***This poem is meant to be read from the bottom to the top, left to right 
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Never Again
and you remain—

For the World has gone from me and fled
The stairway of my mind shall never end
I...

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You are what the Lord wants most,
Forget your past sins and start anew,
Remember that Grace is forgiveness,
And your faith in His grace will save you,

Good fruit will naturally flow,
Once the Lord has you upon the...

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The hardships of my life
Are like a clump of maggots digging through my skin
They are deep within...
How do I inspect them? Where do I begin
When I am in profound distress and sin?

I’m infected…but yet You...

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K through Twelve,
it's called.

Students and teachers
walk the halls.

From beginning to end
behaving like they should

Or else. . .

One knows that
the attic is filled with cobwebs,
of course,
and dusty musty old textbooks
discarded lessons and copies
of one's grade reports.

But...

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use ...

choose ...
the hues of blues
blacks, whites - news
a day-old bruise that lies like torment

under the skin, thin, to squirm and tickle
itching, twitching to send you the fickle reminder
the daily, hourly, minute-by-damn-minute message
vestiges of the...

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flood over me
cooling October clouds,
that bring with them
the death of insects,
the running inside of
all the bikini bearing
wretches, the ceasing
of the smell of barbecues 
& beer bellies,
the retreating faces of messy 
children playing in the
sand, the...

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But they look at me with pride
To have carried the silence
To have carried you this far
They hear the humming of the car
As your hand caresses my burning window
Your mood ring turns brown
Driving me faster towards...

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I’m what you consider fat. 
You can blame genetics. 
You can blame McDonalds.
You can blame your mother.
You can blame your father. 
You can blame the temptation of the delicious donut you just ate.
It doesn’t matter....

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calling all mistreated jugglers
and wretches of condemned madhouses
bewitched by fingers of freak fame
the spindly fingers of trickster twins
that open the floodgates to occult caverns
unleashing the brusque wraiths

the brittle symmetry of her glacial eyes
cast down from...

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Sooth this irrational rage resplendent in its affliction
See through the foolish drawls that make up my surrounding core
Understand I see each flaw of mine in light of your brilliance
Not to compare yours to my worth...

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& when you finally die,
they will not let you rest---
for to finally get to enter every orifice
of your once secret world
is something that vultures dream of
late at night,
before cumming in their jammies
to the thought of...

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"Hold fast, don't let the lines slip",
The ropes tighten around the mast of the ship,
A salty Captain grasps the wooden helm,
Waves rip on the horizon, his realm,
Quartermaster yells "Storm heading northwest by west",
White knuckled the...

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mindless Frankenstein,
single-minded,
and her voracious, faithful dog 
with a seventy-foot tail, 
lifting carpets, sliding sofas,
slurping everything in sight,
with a bottomless pit for an appetite,
metal, insects, dead mice, coins,
fingernail clippings, fleas, spider brains -  
It gurgles...

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Social influence that influence ones belief and behavior,
being the sheep idiom in suit of group as inferior identity savior.
Compliances and obedience for the hero or nymph resort,
names and numbers as taste for pleasure of the...

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Some ride coffins
Black and slick
Completely round
The best of linen interior
For when your inbound
Four feet laid under the ground.

Some swim in tears
Blue tinted, salty, and clear
Drowning their cheers
Pain always living in it
Public with their lament
Swollen eyes...

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