Selected poems by Cüneyt Ayral



Have You Tried ?

"for the girl, Pilar"


To put on silence,
To change your eyes
with words,
To speak with seagulls...

Have you tried any of these?

Cuneyt Ayral (from the book Siir Mezarliklari Gibi)
Translated by Feyyaz Kayacan (Fergar) 1979/London

Silence

How distant the sun looks
Sinking with age over mountains
of September.

How late the fire-flies are
With summer's colloquy:

We remain silent beyond the shore
of wrecked knowledge.

Cuneyt Ayral (from the book Siir Mezarliklari Gibi)
Translated by Feyyaz Kayacan (Fergar) 1979/London

The end of The Words

Have you listened to silence
in the cold?
It resembles dying.
Have you ever left
your flowers
Thirsty in their cage of loneliness?
Have you, from speeding distance,
listened to news bulletins?
Have you fallen in love
In languages unknown to you?

Before death,

I keep myself alive
with a wordless poem.

Cuneyt Ayral (from the book Siir Mezarliklari Gibi)
Translated by Feyyaz Kayacan (Fergar) 1979/London

I may well be night by now.

I may well be night by now.
We are making love by the water
witnessless.
And suddenly
what do I see
but Leandros awakening
early morning
I should embrace love.

Cuneyt Ayral (Lodos Leandros Lakhesis)
Translated by Nurat Yavuz, 1991

Do seagulls ever live on the ocean?

Do seagulls ever live on the ocean?
May be
on the shores...
I am approaching your endlessness
shore by shore.
Endless faraways we shall reach by the skirts.
Afterwards?
A legend.
The sun bleeds on me.
Shadow, of purple on white
The island flower's
Whiteness dazzles my eye.
Are you alight
as faraway as Time,
away from years gone by?

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More on Cuneyt Ayral:
http://www.ayral.com

Other poems of Cuneyt Ayral in English, Turkish & German
http://www.cs.rpi.edu/~sibel/poetry/poems/cuneyt_ayral/english/have_you_tried.html

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