I wanted to post this at The Poemarium, which is dedicated to poems I find and like, in no special order. But since I always include the original for the poems there and so far have not been able to find the text of this poem as it was written in Turkish, I’ll put up the translation (by Önder Otçu ) here:
One should describe you starting from your mouth
Youngster, your mouth is silk from China, conflagrations, a jet-black amber
Your mouth, a spring of ice-cold water, a general strike
A foolish sea throwing itself from one place to another
Your mouth is that kid who sells dark blue-winged birds in the Grand Bazaar
It’s a periodical titled Cornfield
These small, unpretentious rivers of ours are what your mouth is
Coming downhill along a narrow street every day into a little square
Your mouth is “Time in Bursa City,” shyly roofed flea markets
Night as written in the old Arabic
Kids, birds, summer times are all that your mouth is
Your mouth is a silken touch in my mind
(İlhan Berk, Manisa, 18 November 1918 – 28 August 2008)
(From EDA:An Anthology of Contemporary Turkish PoetryMurat Nemet-Nejat -edited by Talisman House Publishers)
(See also: Selected Poems by Ilhan Berk
Sideways Station 