Caught every morning in the lover’s hair, the sunset
Circulates through its strands of red, of light
Because every arrow emerges from the dawn
Evening is weaved from midday to joy.
Nurduran Duman, a poet, playwright and columnist from Turkey, shares her poetry
Nurduran Duman is a Turkish poet, playwright, columnist, culture and arts journalist, speaker, translator, editor, and event curator. She holds a degree in Ocean Engineering and Naval Architecture from Istanbul Technical University. Her notable works include “Yenilgi Oyunu,” winner of the 2005 Cemal Sureya Poetry Award, as well as “Mi Bemol,” “Exchanging Glances with Istanbul” (a novella), “Semi Circle” (published in the US, “Selected Poems” (Macedonia), “Selected Poems” (Belgium). Her poetry collection “Steps of Istanbul” received the “Poetry Collection of the Year” award at the Second Boao International Poetry Award in China in 2019. She has also been honored with the “Golden Camel Award” at the 2020 Silk Road International Poetry Awards. Duman’s play “Before the Fly” has been accepted into the repertoire of Turkish State Theaters and is currently being staged by Bursa State Theatre. She teaches poetry, theatre, creative writing, and literary sociology at various universities and academies. Additionally, she organizes and hosts the event series “Poetry Soiree with Nurduran Duman”. She is part of Poets of the Planet, a global organization with members from all continents, as well as Versopolis, a European writers’ platform, and Turkish PEN.
WEAVE OF COLORS
Caught every morning in the lover’s hair, the sunset
Circulates through its strands of red, of light
Because every arrow emerges from the dawn
Evening is weaved from midday to joy
From sorrow to night… an opposite, a face
Everyone knows sharing is sacred
If leaves and statements don’t decay, then death
Is a green garden, its reward infinite!
People evaporate from boiling water to the face of the sky
Painting the sky blue so it rains
The person who plants the growing tree is mixed with the infinite
There are people who love rain and also those who don’t know how to love.
***
TEAPOT
I mixed with the streets ripped from your roots a rose bud no longer
The road is shortened, one small bud
With my yearnings sunk I’m a tea a little bit blood red, a lesser
Lover
Mother come wrap my sprouting shoots, pick me up tuck me into the house
Steep me on the window in your song’s vibrations, garnish with basil
Sugar me, stir with your hand make the house drink me mother
i left the street I’m a frostbitten petal my sweat is tired
i took my missing feelings back I’m a little bit emptiness, a full separation
I’m a small roof a small portico, I’m a rose bud torn loose
No longer
Mother come shake off my dust, tuck me like a roll in your chest
Raise me again with letters and lullabies, put me to sleep three days and nights
Lay me in life mother before your eyes
Spread a thick inside over me.
***
THE WATERY SIDE OF THE WORLD
Today too is in its proper place the gardener and the nymph
It’s strange but they gave me an old walk
I see the watery side of the world now
I am bending down and drinking laughs thrown into my palms
Your face is going to love me
Your hands now are more and more and more birds
The joy of looking at you is like a child running
You kiss the flower-shaped scars spilling over my forehead
Each letter written down is one febrile illness
I’m opening myself to what you hear to the clouds you listen to
Since when and how is this mirror inside you it’s reflecting my eyes
I dress myself as you see me
When it’s told and finished the story the edges of its eyes are wrinkling
The cloud’s face is getting old, pulling the lace curtain
The mountain is a hand, the fog is now something else something else
***
ABILITY
Light collides with the flower if there’s an eye color becomes
If there’s no eye it’s just being, becoming becomes only
If there’s no ear let the leaf crunch
Sound is only being, the echo waiting for the mountain
Scent desires inhalation to discern/divine the name the reputation
Membrane flies from membranes, the knowing of skin with skin
The human is the plus one of the world
She is the added value, individual talents
The same loving.
Translated by Andrew Wessels
___________________
