Oktay Rifat

Oktay Rifat Poems

1.

Blacker than a grape,
waist finer than a needle,
how does the ant climb
the slopes with its burden?
...

This won't do, it won't work! One day
This disturbance will stop, you'll be born to the Sun.
You'll see again like an old picture
...

I hoisted all my flags on the flagpoles,
I painted the city with my blood's hot colour.
I spread stones on the road that led to anger.
I levelled towers with the back of my hand.
...

4.

Birds combed Emine's hair.
The sun like a fortune-telling daisy now opened
Then closed. The pitcber went cold by the window.
A sailing ship approached above
...

A white cloud over the dome of Aya Sofia,
I watched it disappear. My honey—coloured prayer beads,
The amber days, leaves and hopes fell.
...

Homer speaks of the wildest sea,
Now strangely level, cleansed of flesh!
Perched at a universal angle, the one and only.
...

1
Our horses galloped foaming
to the calm sea.
...

Oktay Rifat Biography

Oktay Rifat, is one of the most distinguished of 20th-century Turkish poets. He was the son of the poet and linguist Samih Rıfat, who was also the governor of Trabzon. He attended Ankara High School for Boys (1932) and graduated from Ankara University, Faculty of Law (1936). He was appointed to Paris, France by the State Ministry to do his Ph.D., however, came back after three years without completing his degree due to outbreak of World War II.)

The Best Poem Of Oktay Rifat

Duty

Blacker than a grape,
waist finer than a needle,
how does the ant climb
the slopes with its burden?

Look at the state of this world,
look at the ruined order,
hatched yesterday,
today the dove of passion.

In the twinkling of an eye
the hawk swoops on the swallows.
When the monster's by the waterside
the gazelle is covered in blood.

I'm carrying the whole burden.
I have to think about each of them one by one,
the young coming into the world
ignorant of the world.

The sun rise in the east -that's for sure-
no surprise.
Then I'm the one who has to worry
when the bee stings a child.

The fox's paw is bloody-
something happens to the lamb.
What is the point, Oktay,
of paint for wolf and bird?

Translated by. Richard McKane

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