On The Funeral Car Poem by Ulas Basar Gezgin

Since it is crowded around the coffin,
You leaned against the coffin and sat.
Your eyes face behind, the car moves ahead.
Sitting this way doesn't bring the dead back.

Behind the funeral car
Life continues to flow and cars as well.
There are even those who honk at the funeral car.
The dead had to be buried quickly in such an age.

One died on one side, it is as if the household burned.
Another died on another side, it is again as if the household burned.
Every day our dead will continue to die, every second,
If the workings of the war machine could not be halted.

I see, you too did not believe that you die and kill
for the palace, for the rich, rather than for the country,
That is why you promise for revenge and they promise
Just like you did for revenge, in the other funeral.

If you would attend their funeral and they would attend yours,
If you would cry together for the dead from both sides,
Would there be any misdeed like war, what do you think?
That is what the funeral tells me, what does it tell you?

I wish nobody would die from our side and their side,
Let's wage war for this, if the war is necessary.
You could at least receive gratitude of the moms
Whose kids would not die, let them see their grandkids.

The funeral car is moving, the mourners are in line.
Then it parks at the cemetery, the thoughts are gone.
If everybody would get on this car once, if they would ever think,
The saddest would be the arm dealers, blood drinkers from chalices...


August 5,2015