Ataol Behramoğlu

"Is the truth of tablecloths to be spread? How awful always to take refuge in known words A person should let himself go."

"Distant lands should draw you, people you dont know To read every book, know others lives, you should be burning You shouldnt exchange for anything the pleasure of a glass of water No matter how much the joy, your life should be filled with yearning"

"In the most affirming places of their love Suddenly they grew tired, out of breath Little by little they felt the death Of some places left in darkness"

"I do not remember any other term when the force that had captured the political power in this country had become so vulgar as it is today, so corrupt, and so hypocritical; when the legal system had been so downtrodden, deteriorated, collapsed and turned into a means of cruelty."

"Ive learned some things from having lived: If youre alive, experience one thing with all your power Your beloved should be worn out from being kissed And you should drop exhausted from the smelling of a flower"

"They were eyes, that while gazing on the world Rendered it brilliant with meaning They were eyes, that embraced me with glances They were eyes, for which I now hopelessly long"

"A person can gaze at the sky for hours Can gaze for hours at a bird, a child, the sea To live on the earth is to become part of it To strike down roots that wont pull free"

"Once more in that hour of darkness In dark black waters they arise Dark songs pass before their eyes They lie awake gazing into darkness"

"To your utmost, listen to every beautiful song As though filling all the self with sound and melody One should plunge head-first into life As one dives from a cliff into the emerald sea"

"Death, one experiences alone Love is a two-person thing"

"Gulls into the water, women proudly into the bazaars I was going to write a poem, I was stifling, fed up with old things Eat, my mother says, but theyre all things Ive grown accustomed to, in the end. Like Camus and — I don’t know — people like that, Im cracking up Everything will begin when it untangles itself from your hair"

"Writing poems is perhaps the loveliest deception Later theyll make a picture or something, then go and drink wine"