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Best Poems Written by Üzeyir Lokman Cayci

Below are the all-time best Üzeyir Lokman Cayci poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

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Istanbul In My Dreams

Your expectations are carved into my eyes...
Their shapes melt in my dreams
The face seen in your postcards
Is not that of your soul Istanbul...
Living apart does not change your seas
Your waiting landscapes offer themselves
Thoughts do not remain still
Istanbul rests its weight upon my loneliness...
White fish swim in your living past
Seagulls float in your memories
Obliterated friendships stay awake till dawn
Anatolia rises from your horizons Istanbul...

by Uzeyir Lokman CAYCI
Traduit par Yakup YURT en français
French free verse translated into English free verse
by F.J. Bergmann., 2002

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They Have Woven a Net Around Us

A feeling of nearness to suffering
In our hearts
While we reduce the dimensions
Of the essence of light
With our eyes
In a local scuffle
Them
They have woven a net around us.
Bearing the pains of life
While watching the people with sullen faces
And tired thoughts
All along the years
We have heard the whistle of whips...
With well-concealed thoughts
Those
Never thought of us
And... without any mercy
Have woven a net around us.
 
by Uzeyir Lokman CAYCI
Traduit par Yakup YURT en français
French free verse translated into English free verse
by F.J. Bergmann, 2002

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I Wrote My Poems With My Heart

I wrote my poems
with my heart
I strolled abroad
With my manuscripts,
drew my expectations
into my drawings
The avalanche of suffering
crushes me. 

I put years
on my back,
stored secrets
in my memory
Often I could not end
trips... 

I was annoyed
by the hypocritical
before my eyes
The mothers gave birth
to tears
The orphans and the forlorn
distributed grief. 

I wrote my poems
with my heart
I strolled abroad
With my manuscripts,
drew my expectations
into my drawings
The avalanche of suffering
crushes me.

Üzeyir Lokman ÇAYCI 
Rueil Malmaison – 10.12.2005 
Traduit par by Yakup YURT en français
French free verse translated into English free verse
by Joneve McCormick, 22.02.2006

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What Species of Humanity Are You?

What species of humanity are you?
Whatever kind you are, you don't worry us. 
According to hearsay
you were willing to lay your hands
on small items
deposited by my mother
to the communal account,
close to a bank.
I know that since its existence
Istanbul has changed others.
Some who have gone there wearing worn down shoes
have returned in high heels.
You continue to brush its streets with your skirt.
Mirrors do not show what really happens. 
Ah, yes, you forget so quickly
the dusty streets of the sub-prefecture
of your childhood.
This ruse is your currency of the moment.
I know you.
You have swindled your brothers and sisters
with many recoveries.
My daughter, is there nobody to take you by the hair
and demand that you seek out America or Europe?
You have invented a lie to fill your pockets with money. 
What species of humanity are you?
Whatever kind you are, you don't worry us. 

Üzeyir Lokman ÇAYCI 
Paris, le 09.10.2004 
Traduit par by Yakup YURT en français 
French free verse translated into English free verse 
by Joneve McCormick - 25.10.2004

(Note: Soul to Soul presents this fine poem and others
in the spirit of communicating freely to increase understanding,
not to cater to any agenda or offend any nationality.)

Details | Üzeyir Lokman Cayci Poem

Of Two, Your Uncle Doesn'T Like Either

By his attitudes
your uncle resembles
a machine with laughs in brightness! 
With some difficulty
most people stop themselves
from laughing.
Besides, are they are in a state
to laugh -
poor people?
Their problems exceed their means,
high costs exclude...
their children are untenable.
Their waiting
lags behind
the century. 
Finding
nothing else in place
he grabs passers-by
by the nose...
a gag in one hand,
a carrot and an onion
in the other.
As a matter of fact...
what does he want,
your uncle? 
 
Üzeyir Lokman ÇAYCI
Magnanville, 17.04.2001 
Traduit par by Yakup YURT en français
French free verse translated into English free verse 
by Joneve McCormick, 16.10.2005

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I Cannot Say To You, Rest In the Night

When you get bored
Go at the edge of the Seine
Be the friend of swans
Divide some bread into pieces
To throw to them! 

Don't be in charge of shippers
Letters remain in consciousness
By dancing northward
Consider bottles
Carried away by fluxes... 

Never present yourself
Instead of others
Don't conform to others either
Rest as you are...
The art that is contained in you develops
I cannot say to you 'rest in the night'. 

Impose your existence
Like a rose
On the pages of society
In the mirror of a page
And in the middle of a mirror
I cannot say to you 'rest in the night'. 

Pretend not to see
The cold winds which pass
Near to you
Drink the sun
Dispel your sadness
Burn griefs one after another...
I cannot say to you " rest in the night ". 

Hardly believe what you hear
Weigh all that you see
Review all that you learn
Speak of your feelings
only to those you like
I cannot say to you 'rest in the night'.

Üzeyir Lokman ÇAYCI 
Bruxelles, le 05.11.2005 
Traduit par by Yakup YURT en français
French free verse translated into English free verse
by Joneve McCormick, 06.03.2006

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Martial Dances

We live in strange times, my brother 
men make money 
with war dances 
and occupation... 
Do you not see the bombardments 
and the pillaging? 
Under the boot 
you are worn out, 
these days 
the sweat of your brow 
no longer serves you! 
Tanks come from distant lands 
passing down your streets 
demanding to know 
why you were born! 
And you can say nothing. 
Soon, if this continues, 
it will be the course of progress 
to be denied learning. 
One speaks of the rights of man 
here and there. 
Do not believe those rumors! 
You see that nothing is in place now! 
We live in strange times my brother, 
arms dealing, 
construction 
governing the land. 
Is it so difficult to understand? 
They sell the merchandise of war! 
Come listen to my counsel. 
Don't marry, it is unsupportable 
to suffer the massacre of your children. 
The success of your affairs depends 
on producing fictitious enemies 
to menace... 
In this manner 
they take over small countries 
one after the other 
under the pretext of saving them. 
While you fight amongst yourselves 
others consume your underground resources. 
What should I tell you; 
do these times plant sorrow 
in your hearts? 
Be a little understanding! 
Increase the number of fratricidal wars, 
divide your people further 
to make the lives of the invaders easier. 
Do not forget that to destroy love 
requires only this: 
Live in a society without love 
and don't educate anyone... 
Live in the clarity of obscurity, 
depend only on yourself! 
The sun rises and sets on time... 
the throats of cocks are cut 
that sing before the hour! 
We live in strange times my brother, 
men make money with war dances 
and occupation... 
Do you not see the bombardments 
and the pillaging? 

By Uzeyir Lokman CAYCI 
Paris - 17.03.2003 
Traduit par by Yakup YURT en français 
French free verse translated into English free verse 
by Joneve McCormick - 2003

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The City Which Is Inside You

You live in your own inner city, which you bought in a 
silent auction.
You were again unable to cancel your debts.
Under your blackening eyelids you try to feel certain 
things.
Without noticing your withdrawal from self, you leave for 
distant parts
by using your ropes of thought like a ski-lift.
Your shudders increase as you touch the numberless elements.
In your screams at the moment when you feel the jolts 
from the echoes
of your words crossing the threshold of your thought,
you send birds fleeing before you. As you breathe, your 
roses wither.
In your moments of madness, crystals fall from your roof.
As your field of thought shrinks, your city expands. You 
exhaust yourself
from running down the streets and avenues.
As the lamps of your voltage machines alight upon your 
nights,
your humans robotize themselves.
The toads in your dirty waters frighten even the crocodiles.
Your inner journey makes you grow older.
Your internal cries amplify themselves.
You manifest difficulties with forty paws.
The auxiliary cells of your laboratories do not give you
the opportunity to live any pleasurable moments.
While the fear indicator inside you slackens you through 
and through, you 
have not
even the possibility of speaking. With each movement of 
the clock,
the seasons rip themselves out of your heart.
Your solitude traverses your spirit without cease.

by Üzeyir Lokman ÇAYCI
Mantes la Ville  - 22.09.2002
Traduit par by Yakup YURT en français
French free verse translated into English free verse
by F.J. Bergmann - 16.02.2003

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Friend, You'Re Not the Guilty One

Friend, you’re not the guilty one
The guilty ones are the evenings
See how they drag you down into this obscurity...
Trouble not yourself
Everyday’s "Love’s Labour Lost"
Vanishes away
Your eyes have learned
The meaning of love anyway
Learn how not to remember
Every point of suffering. 

Remember not those eyes, those eyes
Have gone and they’ve enticed you into smoky cafés
Don’t go and believe 
your eyes, they're just not
as sharp as they used to be
Friend, because you aren’t the guilty one,
The guilty ones are hopes
Leaving you to the shadows. 

So what’s the use of fussing
If they’ve never understood
The poems your own baggy eyes
Have forgotten? ... 

You’re alone in an unknown beyond
Your eyes are alone as well ...
You’re not guilty, friend
The guilty ones are hopes
Leaving you alone in darkness.

Üzeyir Lokman ÇAYCI
İstanbul, 20.02.1975
Translated from Turkish to French by Yakup Yurt
followed by English translation by Richard Vallance

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Are You Ready Children?

Today I shall choose one of you
A child on whom falls a shadow, wedged in a corner between lines...
A daisy bringing us some suffering from his home
Silent in the middle of a blue turning grey, a button of a rose without anyone in the 
mass of it...
A living being full of secrets, the heart of which spreads light
While the sun continues running into water, the headlights of space fall in front of 
him one after another...
Say so if you have problems!
If you are part of a life full of black points, blended in the night, encircled with 
ruddy colours, show yourselves...
I know that your security guards do not self-protect
In spite of the reins of ice on your ways, in which the identity of humans melt, can 
you determine your destination?
Are you ready children?
Today I shall choose one of you
A child on whom falls a shadow, wedged in a corner between lines...
 
Üzeyir Lokman ÇAYCI 
Paris,  20.12.2003
Traduit par by Yakup YURT en français
French free verse translated into English free verse
by Joneve McCormick, 08.10.2005