From the 'Suite in the Ottoman Mode'

Istanbul Gate of Happiness

world war years with the beauty of a frightened woman

when the good cheer kept vigil at kuzgunjuk landing turned like the pessimistic cadets of kuleli toward sultan reshat and no one was there for the last autumnal ferry no helva vendors from beykoz or phonographs with odeon horns pouring out songs in an ancient mode only the captain’s cymbals alla turca made in yildiz and lifted from the bazaars

istanbul straits with the sulkiness of a wounded vulture

when monocled german officers argued at kramer’s beerhouse moltke versus bismarck in their fissured tongue downing three bitter dark green doubles of pilsen beer torpedonet heroes rich in numbers as the imperial band return to the galacian front under the cold russian rain swept night and day by long-range battery fire red crescent tents blossoming like wet flowers enormous flowers of extremely bloodstained white back to the galician front the operetta remedy

false news in the ikdam of victory on the syrian front

at the ministry of war the commander-in-chief enver pasha with colonel süleyman of military secret intelligence knows nothing of how time passes until morning worship in the unfiltered glass-shattering darkness of a cellar before an execution the nervous motions of prayer of cowardly shadows in bekirağa prison the sticky sweat crawling on yakup jamil’s temples the torn union and progress membership card on the floor

the rattle of a mauser being loaded the order to shoot the lilacs fade like lightning in the water jug there is no cure

those world wars years with the beauty of a frightened woman

Bridal Reception Song

stolen from balkan slumbers an old honeysuckle melody the unforgettable duet of ahs of müjgan the chanteuse and a gold-embroidered lieutenant out of a skoplje spring

mustafa kemal’s revolver bitterly silent in salonica young turk trains morning and night colonel enver’s finger on the trigger monastir taut as a tambourine every mosque resounding with chants

the lute settles on a lyrical theme the oleaster sighs blossom by blossom the stars are errors in a sky gone mad müjgan changes her tempo now in yanya tower in the arsenal a bulgar is caught a komitaji

lightning flashes are tacked above yildiz palace the rumeli officers are for a constitution a little jug of raki melon and white cheese niyazi’s riding-whip is inlaid with silver a spark is nourished in the mountains of macedonia to light a fire in istanbul gate of happiness

Last Days of Müjgan the Chanteuse

it rains on the wisteria her sleep dissolves into the loneliness of widowhood a thread of ink oozes from her torpor a faded pink against her face every quarter of an hour crushing her sharps and flats as fine as flour the heavy iron gates of the balkan war clang shut she reaches every so many seconds to touch the pale hands of her lieutenant in a caress he was wounded not far from chatalja in the feathered darkness of that morning of defeat nightingales from the hills of chamlija fall into her lap in twos and threes they fall electric flowers grow on the tramway lines part bitter oleander of hell part hemlock

’… under the damsons I sit beside our house at turnova my deceased mother is combing my hair an ivory comb in her hand hairpins between her lips a bitter smell of gunpowder in our nostrils the reserves are holding manoeuvres whatever piano I happen to touch answers with tatyos efendi’s three-beat rhythms in the gardens the apricot branches are breaking it is evening in turnova the rebels have withdrawn to distant mountains in my heart a tired clock strikes the hour

‘death on the electric garden of the tramway lines when the moon-dark nights are full of dogs regrets and tears that come too late

the secret glimmer of hydrangeas in a flower-pot

’… lieutenant ihsan’s song the one I sang that friday in the selamlik trembling like a palm-tree with sunshine in its very sap - beloved light of my eyes my master istanbul officer from kalamish chestnut-haired a trifle stern of look embroidered upon my heart with finest gold -

‘lieutenant ihsan’s song in actual fact the song of my lost youth in another sense the song of lost rumeli pomegranate sherbet clouding the glass pastries bursting in the oven the green light of rain across the mosque courtyards stone thresholds washed till they creak with cleanliness.‘

Last Days of Lieutenant İhsan

graceful and inward-turned behind the lattices fuchsia the red of wine a black and white cat in her lap müjgan is singing in the selamlik her eyes gilt insects of imagination her long yellow hair spilling across her shoulders

where immense waterlilies come to life in distant gardens soft with string music reflected in the loneliness of pools her clouded beauty alone slender mauve heavy with premonitions of evil the ashen tuesday when I left her the whirligig of death keeps turning

so it has been since I left turnova my shutters tight-closed my hearth extinguished one ray of light filtering through my clouds a tiny light delicate humble my love for müjgan intense and deferent lone immortality within the balkan rout

Translated by Nermin Menemencioğlu