Love Poem: The City Which Is Inside You

The City Which Is Inside You

You live in your own inner city, which you bought in a 
silent auction.
You were again unable to cancel your debts.
Under your blackening eyelids you try to feel certain 
things.
Without noticing your withdrawal from self, you leave for 
distant parts
by using your ropes of thought like a ski-lift.
Your shudders increase as you touch the numberless elements.
In your screams at the moment when you feel the jolts 
from the echoes
of your words crossing the threshold of your thought,
you send birds fleeing before you. As you breathe, your 
roses wither.
In your moments of madness, crystals fall from your roof.
As your field of thought shrinks, your city expands. You 
exhaust yourself
from running down the streets and avenues.
As the lamps of your voltage machines alight upon your 
nights,
your humans robotize themselves.
The toads in your dirty waters frighten even the crocodiles.
Your inner journey makes you grow older.
Your internal cries amplify themselves.
You manifest difficulties with forty paws.
The auxiliary cells of your laboratories do not give you
the opportunity to live any pleasurable moments.
While the fear indicator inside you slackens you through 
and through, you 
have not
even the possibility of speaking. With each movement of 
the clock,
the seasons rip themselves out of your heart.
Your solitude traverses your spirit without cease.

by Üzeyir Lokman ÇAYCI
Mantes la Ville  - 22.09.2002
Traduit par by Yakup YURT en français
French free verse translated into English free verse
by F.J. Bergmann - 16.02.2003