Orhan Veli Kanik Poems

These fine days have been my ruin.
On this kind of day I resigned
My job in 'Pious Foundations'
On this kind of day I started to smoke
...

I listen to Istanbul, my eyes closed:
First, a light wind blowing
A soft wind swaying
The leaves in the trees,
...

Everything happened all of a sudden.
All of a sudden daylight beat down on the earth;
There was the sky all of a sudden;
...

Ones who don't live alone don't know
How much silence scares one;
How one talks to himself;
How one runs to mirrors,
...

I didn't believe I would have thoughts like this,
I would be sleepless at nights,
I would be so silent.
...

I am not far from you
Your eyes shall know to look, I am in your looks
Perhaps closer to you than yourself
...

I shall die without anyone knowing,
There shall be
a little blood by my mouth.
The ones who don't know me shall say
...

This is the city to walk around in the rain
Staring at the barges in the harbor
And to hum songs through the night.
...

Hanging around on the Bridge,
Gleefully I watch all of you...
Out there, some of you row backward
Or pick mussels off the buoys;
...

How pleasant is the color of tea,
In the morning,
In open weather!
...