There is no Sky above my head

  

My eyes

 Grown accustomed to

Looking at walls so much

 They do not see anything else,

Are now totally blind.

 Thousands of walls seem to

Rise inside myself.

There is no sky above my head,

Only thousands of walls.

The hard beat

Of my weak,

 exhausted heart,

In an enormous dream garden,

Always leafing out. 

And now, as if to play

 Russian roulette

With life,

A fire has begun.

 It is faint,

But dominating.

 And yet sometimes,

Igniting quietly,

A beam of light

Will suddenly leak into the room.

 It passes through that slight

Air shaft under the door.

Then it descends

 Down to the floor

And remains in the deep. 

(20 September 1980 Mamak)  Translated by Nesrin Eruysal & Kenneth Rosen