FATHER DON'T SHOUT AT ME

to those who open their umbrellas
to keep the road dry...


father don't shout at me
you've driven away the nightingales from my forests
you've blown up the doors of my ears
the doors father the doors have gone away
taking the windows with them
the tenors have run away from the vocal chords
the mini dictators are all over the place
so many sopranos wanted to have you
but we could not part with you

father don't shout at me
tell me the tales of eagles that perch on a flag pole
how they were unable to see the hunters alas
with their piercing eyes
chance is a lie characteristic of the stars father
you've turned the stars into planets by spitting at them
you've hung fighting people on the neck of the world


I've written down the lies in my notebook never forgetting them
the Ministers who mistook radiation for radio station
the ruffian who sealed the ceiling of the Parliament with
raw meat balls
the postnatal pains of women who give birth to dwarf nations


I've never forgotten
the men who forgot their faces in their beards
and their beards in their faces
and the scattered pieces of the bomb in the fields
of stinging nettle
that turned Uğur Mumcu into each one of us
I've never forgotten
all those traps father far and near
you are a toy lorry crushed by the road
a tree of grief broken by the weight of heavy snow
you've lent the spring to the stupid
and they haven't brought it back
how can we understand o father
whatever happened to the sun if we don't have our spring



father don't shout at me
your words enter through one ear
but deafen the other one
I say to myself that I would like to be in Buenos Aires
on Eva's peron
a train that steals birds from darkness
a fugitive from knives
in the city where legs are thrown up by tango
but it's good to be here, here without forgetting anything
here
where knowledge is more painful than ignorance
here, opposite you
time was something like castor oil in prison
hours sailed on like vessels of thick blood in hospitals
somewhere there were men who coucealed
the honour of their wives in their tongues
the children who were lost in TV channels
the fish that clung to the sea in order not to fall into the sky
and there were Lenin statues stored in basements
in Soviet Russia
why don't you put the walls in your head
into your pockets father


father don't shout at me
you are not aware
that the world is a postage stamp
the sticky side of which is wetted by the oppressed
until a black hole in the space swallows us
you are a cat pushed over to the elevator cavity
now is the time to say it
the condition of the country is the work of the parties
you voted for father
but I am here, here without forgetting anything
standing alert for life and our recent history


father don't shout at me
if a poem is wounded on its leg
how far can it get
father don't shout at me
shout at yourself
otherwise everything may come to an end

( Translated by Cevat Çapan )