Sena [my English translation]
since long time I don’t know who told who what
I have never seen anyone whose name passes through both bread and rose
I haven’t met them
I slightly slowly am
a person who does not do anything five times a day
I am slightly terribly inclined towards the saddest of spices
if possible poppy
if not I can break my heart with similar words too
lets say ginger
lets say hibiscus
my hand my foot
this tale where what I have been through and what passes through my mind is mixed
a street I walk through repeating love is making everything slower
your heart is the tambourine and a hole
the picture of a child who is carrying a mark of the world in his heart she said
since I looked at you five times a day
since I woke up to all these mornings of this world
I slept all these sleeps
I wished to have a face that has terribly believed in the world
[to have] a terrible heart which I would say I will kill myself with you
[to have] a hand
[to have] a foot
[to have] words that I would blow with the wind that I load my mouth with
to say terrible
to say horrible
my hand my foot
in this intersection where I don’t know what I am delivering to where
the herbalist who called those things which leave their voice behind were spices, told
it is a curse to be whole
it is a sin to think of becoming whole
this life is offending but letters made out of world
I came here half moony and defected
instead of doing nothing for five times a day
I looked at you
world became looking at you
one by one the spices
piece by piece how the time was sweating us
I sadly told you about a face that believed in the world
I said maybe world is looking to somewhere sadly
seven times to its mountains
once to its bazaars it snows in east
the days pass with stopping and waiting and days that continue with stopping and waiting
I came here through the dreams that continue even after waking up
lets say basil
I stopped and studied basil around here
lets say I got tired as much as working on basil in this world
I wanted you to know
for the first time bread and rose will pass next to us
for the first time bread and rose will pass in our name
I beg you please don’t get me involved with [infected by] the world
my hand my foot
My mind tangled in a house which protects its soul and walls with prayer at first
my heart tangled
my grandmother who said east ate its mountains
made my sisters drink water so they won’t notice everything they see
made them eat wind so they won’t speak everything they know
I looked at that from within a well
I swallowed each time before I said my grandmother or the world
I chose this face for myself with the name of the east that ate its mountains
I said maybe life was a place of swallowing
that courtyard
that roof
that childhood
I said maybe life was a place of swallowing
my hand my foot
so my sisters whose hearts are full of swallowing
how can this be possible
they started talking from their hair
I said isn’t it that I am in my blackest age
isn’t it that I ate my bread buried into the sweat of my face
I should be going to those most terrible plants right now
I called for the poppy
I went for hibiscus
I was ginger
I told myself one should always roll wood and I should smoke it
prayers on our walls
that magical grandmother in those prayers
my hand my foot
in those days that I spend trying to please my stone with the enemies
I am fine but there is a hole in my heart
I am fine but this is east
I am fine but my circumstances are bad [where] in all those places where I was defined
I said this is sunna
this is sunna
this long defect of yours to think that I am growing things that I don’t cut
this slowness on the edge of your heart
what leaves my sentences half
what makes me burn into smoke whatever that is in the name of that
how can this be possible
I started talking from my eyes first
I have seen the evening of the world
the places of curiosity suspicion and waiting
one morning when life asked me to come forth to the blackboard
the pencil that I wrote world is cold was broken
that mirror
I have seen it
wherever I went on this world I was straight and my shadow was hunchbacked
my hand my foot
you went and your rain continued later
there were some stone bazaars of the world that I tried in this world
the plants of patience [that I tried]
the east which I slept forty sleeps of
the street that I walked on in forty ways
life stayed on my neck with an awkward stickiness
I said even if I get washed in forty voices your voice can not be cleaned from my heart
I am straight my shadow is hunchbacked
this mark is different
Seyyidhan Kömürcü
Kömürcü, Seyyidhan. Dunya Lekesi [Mark of the World]. Istanbul: Everest
Yayinlari, 2012. Print. pg. 10-20
[1] “Sena” means both glorification and eulogy in Ottoman Turkish. The word probably has its etymological root in either Arabic or Farsi. It is not used in modern Turkish with these meanings any more but it became a widely used a women’s name.