Aziz Isa Elkun
I can hear faint music
It comes from outside like a ghost
I guess it comes from an old piano
An old lady plays
Missing her sweetheart…
It slowly reaches my window
“You are welcome” I said to myself
“Can you cleanse my depressed soul?”
Then the piano becomes louder
I believe music can heal our feelings of rage
Inspire our poems
So pure and innocent
So kind and sympathetic
It brings things back to you
Maybe beautiful memories you have lost.
Aziz Isa Elkun
Before ….
Before you feel endless homesickness
Before you feel the life is meaningless
Before your hair becomes all white
Before your grandchildren marry
Before you learn what’s wrong and what’s right
Before your teeth fall out
Before you have an extra leg
Before you travel with an electric chair
Before …
by Nurmemet Yasin (Orkishi)
translated by Aziz Isa Elkun
Where are you our heroic men?
Let us go to the desert,
The brave hunter finds freedom there,
It flows in his spirit and his blood.
The reeds sing a desert song,
Horses neigh on the horizon.
The heroic people who once lived by the sword,
Now lie quiet beneath the earth.
The floating moon becomes a beautiful girl,
Telling a story in the blue* sky,
Oh the reed bed fiercely burns,
And with it the hopes of a whole nation.
