The Wall Of Love Poem by Can Yücel

Was it you or your loneliness
In the blind dark we opened bleary eyes
Last night's curses on our lips
We would frequent art-lesbian-lovers,
Galleries and public places
My daily care was to remove you into the midst of men
An ammoniac flower in your button hole
My loneliness my incontinent countess
The lower we sink the better

We loitered in the pubs at Kumkapğ
With beanstew, beer and wine before us
And police battalions behind us; in the mornings
My Guardian Saints would find my carcass in the gutters
Hot as the garbage-collecfors' hands,
With their hands I caressed you.
My loneliness my bristle-haired beauty,
The higher we stink the better


I looked in the sky a red flash a plane
Steel and stars and human beings galore
One night we leapt the Wall of love
Where I fell was so clear so open
You and the universe at my side.
Uncountable my deaths, their resurrections.
O loneliness my many songs
The more we can live without lies the better.

Translated by Ruth Christie