The Hanging

By Mevlut Ceylan 

They tell me to go through urgent mirrors

to take stock of my image

and the contents of my heart

They tell me that someone with gentle hands

will wipe the sweat trickling like remorse

down my temples

They also tell me I will be given a door to open

But I have found myself hanging

in many mirrors

in the shape of a nameless soldier

Justice here is unanimous like death

it is very much admired by tourists

who come in their thousands

To collect their terminal decorations

*   *   *   *   *

Mevlut Ceylan was born in Ankara and since 1979 has been living in self-imposed exile in London. He has published three collections of his own poetry in Turkish and has translated many Turkish poets into English, publishing a series of chapbooks from Core Publications of the work of Cahit Zarifoglu, Arif Ay, Nuri Pakdil,Erdem Bayazit and Asaf Halet Celebi among others and editing two anthologies of Turkish poetry in translation.

He founded Core: an international poetry magazine with the poet Feyyaz Fergar in London.

He has translated into Turkish selections from James Joyce's Chamber Music, RD Laing's Conversations with Children; also translated poems by Mahmoud Darwish, Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Marvin X, Imamu Amiri Baraka, Kobi Nazrul Islam, among many others, in Turkish literary journals.