10 poems by Turkish poet and fiction writer Müesser Yeniay under World Poetry/Prose Portfolio, curated by Sudeep Sen. Translated from the Turkish by Müesser Yeniay
Love
I have another body
outside
of me
they call it
love
[but this is pain]
if I had carried you in my body
only then I would have felt your existence
this much
Masturbation
All the lines of my body
are awakening
Like a grape
I am full, I am black
if you don’t have a man
to love you
make men from your hands
[because they all
remain
like the bridges
reach to your body
and falling down]
Menstruation
Postfeminismus
Silence becomes word
drop by drop
I am a woman, a poet
in this nothingness
that batters my body
the egg that leaves my womb
every month
has a legend
in my body
it has a trace
my womenhood
my Achilles toe
my dog that barks every month
a man can’t be a poet
a man can be a pen for a poet
Permanent Talk with the Beloved
I opened myself to you
like the teeth of
a zip
one by one
I am broken in half
when you touched me
I watched the glory
of the earth
[in your hands
there are little
flying fairies]
you saw that sweet
emptiness in me
my body
like snow melting
blended with your body
Apple
God set borders
between you and me
you can’t pass behind that line
just before this line is yours
and he put a binocular made of flesh for your body
and for mine a little cave
he had separated us
with a sharp knife
your seed was left in me
my peel was left in you
now that God dissociated us
why is he trying to unify again
by setting fire of desire
at our feet
The Phenomenology of Writing
Now you are
an empty page
inviting
writing
— maybe —
because of lust
just me not ready
— your call is on my mind for quite a while —
call me call me
the flow of ink
is a remedy
for my wounds
The Flood
Human gets used to everything
Even the knife stuck on his belly
Those minutes stinging like the broken piece of a glass
Longing is a wild animal on me
For days I have been trying to survive
among his claws
This order tired me
This machismo
I wish a flood came and took everything
I wish just the beloved stayed
And his glances that perched on me
like butterflies
This World is a Man
I am a woman
like this huge earth
I am treeless
maybe I am living
I am under earth
I am upside-down
I am breathing
not so that I stay in this world more
sometimes I go to a man
— to a nothingness —
this world is a man
strong, coward, cheater
Spear
Either a spear
or a man
enters my body
it doesn’t make any difference any more
Can cotton carry iron?
go, flow before me
like a raving flood
being human is hard
but manhood is the most miserable...
Snow
Snowflakes
beat my window
like your image
beating my mind
in repeat
with all the coldness
of seperation
I watched it snow
Your curing body
is away from me
I am all covered with you
like this white layer which coats the earth
love me
as much as your heart suffices...
blow the knot of my soul
with your sweet breath
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