Bayram Balci (Turkey)

Bayram Balci

He was born on February 15, 1963 in Ankara Altındağ. His hometown is Sivas.
He spent his childhood and early youth in Ankara Altındağ.
He studied in Ankara until the first grade of high school.
He was expelled from Ankara Altındağ Yıldırım Beyazıt High School due to political events.
He continued his education at Teyfik Sırrı Gür High School in Mersin.
While studying at Çukurova University, Department of Philosophy, he was arrested for political reasons. He spent about 5 years in prison.
He started journalism in 1991.
He worked in the offices of Özgür Gündem Newspaper in Urfa, Diyarbakır, Van, Mardin, Adana and Istanbul.
He worked as a journalist in Istanbul until 2016.
His first poem was published in Cumhuriyet Magazine in 1985.
His poems and prose were published in magazines such as Karşı Edebiyat, Akatalpa, Edebiyat ve Critiki, Utopiya, Defter, Öteki-siz, and Mecmua.
Together with his friends, he published the Mediterranean Lyrics magazine in Mersin, Yeni Poetry magazine in Ankara, and Ağır Ol Bay Düzyazı poetry magazines in Istanbul.
He founded Virtüel Publishing with a group of friends in Istanbul.
He has 4 published poetry books.
Press, describing the state pressure on Özgür Gündem newspaper
Wrote the screenplay for the movie. (2011)
He wrote the screenplay for the movie Blue Ring, about the deportation of a group of political prisoners on hunger strike to another prison. (2013)
He made a documentary film about Altındağ, one of the oldest districts of Ankara. (2020)
Since 2016 he has been living in exile in Brussels, the capital of Belgium.


LAMİA

I.

cyanide is wandering in a city’s veins
love is stronger, far than we
a murder by insanity is hidden in every single day
our time is fading, melancholic and trembling

i am unaquainted with being so distant
humans were just passing through my heart,
passing through and hurting my dreams
then, i was bleeding my hopeless youth
within a copper pitcher

an unskimmed wound is casting a shadow
shading loneliness, like notes from a distant song
cities of the heart are bleeding, Lamia
i sense this through waters pouring in my palms

i am unaquainted with being so far away from my beloved city
like slices of bread coming at the dinner table with virtues

II.

i am telling you the story of an anguish holding life prisoner
butterfly chants attached to a coroner’s morgue
leaf blades snapped off its branch
i am telling you about a life facing mountains,
city, marten-trap houses, requiem, omnibuses, undressed
singing love of life without a cadaver is knocking on doors
in the morning with disasters
love is suffering to me, Lamia, disobedient.

i am screaming at you now with anguish of a woman who lost her son
i perish, Lamia
breathing, my heart pounding
i perish as throbbing city’s memory
mourning a lost son is a plague infectious to a city
inexorable embarrassed unofficial
destroys the throne of a royalty
the fear is mingled with the gall, the scream mingled with my mother’s grief
i am born again, Lamia
a handful of flesh, three grams of blood clots
in the heat of the moment without what comes next
i am a fossil beyond the ages
yet my mother takes me to her bosom as a belove

III.

life is pulling the trigger towards my childish side
i get shot every morning   in a different part of my body
and silence of an overpowering dissonance
the cities were taken over, Lamia
one of the cities impeding love
ankara: a wondering snail-nosed exile
sivas: a fire melting my heart in bronze
istanbul: a miserable whose necks were tied together by bridges
what can they give to a cupid that misses life as a target?

i am the slain of morning in breaking news headline, Lamia
respondent with love to "summons to surrender"
inscribing your name to bullet broken glasses
a shrapnel burst at the tip of your tongue
like a manifest groomed with a mountain
i burst into pieces at the bosom of a city

IV.

what i call love, Lamia. what i know as love
is something lost in between bombs
a daylight in the particles of dust clouds
something detached from the heart of the mountain
a fireseed drained away to its womb
without a shroud or tomb, unknown overseas caravan
what I call love is a thesis refuting the mind
a  lyric inspired from the mountain

i am a murmur of an earthquake, Lamia
a sparrow’s wet wing
a river searching its roots
a whirling crane resistance

one day, i climb down the bosom of a city
as the first morning glow is rupturing the stars in the night
like a mother’s ardent heart
wrapped in fires in the mill of city
burning the agony of poverty
the storm inside my heart cannot fit into a city
for this is not love, Lamia. it’s everything.

city’s routine ache bursts into pieces and I turn into a flood
turn into  wondrous  kid lost in games
a vengeance of wild youth in slums diplayed in the windows
fortune daisies dried inside the books by maidens
a heartache fallen to its deep sorrow
city crowd is a loneliness, mobile and spoiled
compress your aches into my wounds, Lamia. or else it would destroy me
this hopeless life, this premeditated executioner of love

V.

i am speaking to you with things wandering in a young waste collector’s mind
who sweeps the whole city wrapped up with morning fog in his heart
the city is a glass ocean filled and emptied every single day
without any rain, hypocrite, perisher.

alas, Lamia.
you never learnt that there were things more beautiful than hope
the illusion socalled life is being translated with dollars and marks
now only storks can bleed your love
and Spring wastes itself with diplomatic  betrayals
an insane assassin breeds fears into a city’s palms full of betrayals

Lamia...my beloved, rose tasty, lost in between loves
besieging forces of life can never reach the summits of love
poison is a dagger hidden within your wounds
cry...cry...
cry
let your eyes mingle with dust particles in the mountain’s curves
Lamia, i would never live in these cities.


THE DEATH OF LOVE AT A HORSELESS CAROUSEL

I inform the woman that cat will hunt the bird
tell that bird not to drive the cat so crazy
so many freckles in your face. and a butterfly
is wandering at your footsteps. a day turns into a thread of wool

no movies to be told, cat. hence i am dying
i am leaving you addresses of the doors closed behind me
if no one wants to go to anywhere other than himself
i am dying, holding hands of a woman and a cat

the woman is at horseless carousel of her frivolity dreams
the bird shots itself with unspeakable love at the opera house
the man selling eveningpaper is crying. a boulevard is tearing from his eyes

love that never experienced is a rotten tree of the past


LIFE UNTOUCHED MY SOUL

i passed through mundane sufferings with deep dreams  
i scraped arogant spots on my face
nothing is divine in this world
life is eternal. love is never immortal

a leaf should have a brach. roseblood poured into my heart
i have griping pain like a river unable to find its course
while passing through the loop of love
i curled life’s hairs into my palms

i burned all the books that has word betrayal in it
love is a flower that is bloomed in plague era
details hide its smells and cherry is always
a fruit to be stolen for children in the gardens

to cross-check love does not bring happiness
loneliness of the birds shots arrogant hearts
and it rains everyday upon myself
i get drenched to the skin but life cannot touch my soul

nothing is divine in this world
hazel colored time’s blodclot is dissolved
and another love falls from the collar of state
a dream refutes itself

Translated into English by Samet Köse