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Poetry

Tunnel

By Birhan Keskin
Translated from Turkish by George Messo

The roads I walked didn’t tire me,
the plans I formed to kill
myself didn’t work,
I did not diminish one bit, I did not increase
I forgot the night I died in your nakedness.

I found myself like an inner pain
I neither escaped from your murder nor died
there was blood around, it felt cold, desolate . . .
Carrying a tunnel’s wind-rush in me
I passed through the agony,
throughout the road, in time’s fragments
they reckoned me a shiver
and yet, except for a silence or two, entire,
I became cold, felt cold

I understood the water turning to ice in its own hole,
the road’s sorrow . . .

Translation of “Tunel.” By arrangement with the author. Translation copyright 2008 by George Messo. All rights reserved.

English

The roads I walked didn’t tire me,
the plans I formed to kill
myself didn’t work,
I did not diminish one bit, I did not increase
I forgot the night I died in your nakedness.

I found myself like an inner pain
I neither escaped from your murder nor died
there was blood around, it felt cold, desolate . . .
Carrying a tunnel’s wind-rush in me
I passed through the agony,
throughout the road, in time’s fragments
they reckoned me a shiver
and yet, except for a silence or two, entire,
I became cold, felt cold

I understood the water turning to ice in its own hole,
the road’s sorrow . . .

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