Biz Üç Kisiydik [English translation]

We were three; Bedirhan, Nazlıcan and me

Three voices, three hearts, three sworn fire...

Our names were carved to the rocks and mountains as trouble

Heavy blame on our shoulders, cross fires in our bosom

Hands on trigger, eyes on the door, our backs trusted upon soil

We hugged each other under the stars and the quilt

While we were scrubbing our freezing hands with poison hemlock

The sea was far away and the loneliness was hurtful.

At the edge of the cliffs in the nights,

Coyote sounds afar would run through our faces, our bread, our ballads

Nazlıcan would rub thyme to her chest, the odour would spread

We secretly eyed her, as our hearts collapsed.

Maybe we lost Nazlıcan to a shepherd's pipe.

She conjoined with fireflies and withered away flickering.

Leaving a delicate dead butterfly right in the middle,

Withering away ablaze like a bullet, like a mine...

Nazlıcan, the doe of the wild ridges

Nazlıcan, hair sweeped by storm

You too went to the sidereal world?

Nazlıcan, wounded within...

Nazlıcan, the flower of highlands

Nazlıcan, the burning sensation

A butterfly in my chest

Nazlıcan...

We were now crashed like a defeated army, abandoned

We passed by, our parkas and hearts torn apart

The rest is the feeling of death, heavy silence

We passed by, the emptiness of Nazlıcan between us.

They shot Bedirhan behind the back in a pit

Though he rose above from many great blockades,

Like a rifle sliding gravely through a shoulder,

He trembled and his arms fell down to his sides.

Death surrounded him like a dead nettle

His reflection in the moonlight was an overthrown tree

While my pulse cracked my chest,

I reached and touched his eyelashes in tears.

It was like a joke, he was going to wake up,

He was going to poke the fire and roll a cigarette.

But death has been loyal to its appointment.

He was no more, like Nazlıcan.

Bedirhan, the ghost of pitch black nights,

Bedirhan, the plague of treacherous ambushes.

You weren't a guy to end like this, speak up!

Bedirhan, graved in eagle's nest.

Bedirhan, the fugitive of the mountains

Bedirhan, sharp blue eyes

In my stash, a knife of silent night

Bedirhan...

We were three

Three flowers of suicide

Bedirhan, Nazlıcan and me,

Suphi...

• Artist:Ahmet Kaya