THE WAVE

To think myself happy
I don't need a piece of paper or a pen;
A cigarette dangling between my fingers
I enter the blue
Of the painting on the wall.

I enter it, the sea pulls me,
It pulls me, the world snares me;
Is there something like alcohol,
Alcohol in the air,
Making me mad, making me sad?

I can recognize a lie
When I see it;
It's a lie that I became a boat;
The coolness of water on my ribs
Is a lie,
The wind on the watchtower's a lie,
The motorboat which has been chugging along
For weeks...

Nevertheless,
I can still spend, still spend
Beautiful days
In this blue,
Like the watermelon rind swimming in the sea,
Like the reflection of the tree in the sky,
Like the fog which envelops the plum trees in the morning,
The fog, the mist, the love, the smells...

II.

Neither paper nor pencil
Can make me think myself happy.
I'll say it again,
This is nonsense
I'm not a ship.
I must be in a definite, definite
Place
Unlike the rind of watermelon
Or light or fog or mist...
Like a human being.




Orhan Veli
Translated by Murat Nemet-Nejat, 1989