A poem of longing built on a past tense of habits now ended: the beloved would ask after him with half a smile and half a glance, and now the poet asks where that time went.
Mihrî Hatun's ghazal condemning concern for honour on the road of love: the rose among thorns, the snake-lock and antidote-lip, and a lover who accepts the gallows.
Münîrî's mixed Turkish-Persian ghazal: a drunkard of the banquet of Alast, a line cast into the sea of the heart, Solomon and the ant, arrows sunk to the nock and a fly in honey.
Prince Bayezid's murabba with the refrain "O my eye, weep blood; O heart, sigh and cry out": a meadow like a dungeon, an imagined feast and exile from a padishah's door.
Cûdî's mesnevi of a train journey through the Vardar plain: crops with poppies, blue mountains that wake and darken, a tunnel, the old troubles of caravan days, and a call to ride the railway.
The lover swears by the dust of the beloved's feet, and that dust is also what the oath is about. In this fourth ghazal on "yours", shooting stars are the fiery arrows of sighs.
The poet's nature is pregnant with a child of verse; Moses' story of the fire seen on a dark night is turned around, and to the lover who says "Erinî" the beloved appears.
Mihrî Hatun's ghazal with the redif "yazdı": fate's writing in the opening couplet, then a redif that turns to "all but", and a beloved who all but smiles at the lover's plea for a kiss.
Münîrî's ghazal on the proverb "the answer to a fool is silence": the Ever-Living, ruby lips, tresses that swallow the heart as the fish swallowed Jonah, and a grassless grave.
Prince Bayezid's seven-stanza murabba with the refrain "all that is left for me is to take to the mountains": Mecnun, the madman, the moth and repeated set phrases.
Cûdî's müstezat on the modern shopping street, "The Market": the latest fashion, shop windows, a crowd strolling like fairies, deceptive adornment, and a warning to the bird of fancy.
A funeral testament with the refrain "when one dies": a lover with no one left to mourn him, a corpse washed in rose water and shrouded in tulips, a rival's mockery, a martyr of love.
The refrain "ağlar" sets the eye, the minstrel and a lost caravan's master weeping; the beloved is a vengeful Rustam, and past the pen name the fire of Karbala rises.
Mihrî Hatun's ghazal with the redif "dükenmedi" (has not run out), kept in one manuscript: a spent life against an unkept promise, a roasted liver, a nightingale in the beloved's quarter.
Münîrî's ghazal with the refrain "ey dost": a beauty who upsets the world, a lock that steals hearts, tears shed to save a sword's temper, the moth, and the Sura of the Sun.
Prince Bayezid's nine-stanza murabba with the refrain "my heart's comforter, in every state my partner in sorrow": tears like the Ceyhun, sun and mote, Ferhad and the rebab.
Cûdî's kıta starting from a young girl's ornaments: a tiara clad in light, a golden lock, a gleam that is not diamond but the frozen light of a glance, and a spirit long familiar with houris.
The opening ends on the Arabic saying "like inclines to like": the cypress leans to the stature it resembles. People come to watch the lover's tears as Egyptians watched the Nile in flood.
On seeing the poet the ascetic gives up idolatry and becomes his new convert; the rind found his faith in the tavern, the jar never empties, and love is the poet's fame.
Mihrî Hatun's ghazal built on the beloved's threshold: the wordplay of head and stone, the doorkeeper heart, water-carrier eye and sweeper eyelash, the Ferhad allusion.
A ghazal with the refrain "dürüst", attributed to Münîrî only in anthologies: down like a decree, a judge's deed, a lock's secret faith, and teeth like the Pleiades.
Prince Bayezid's murabba with the refrain "my heart-stealer, peace of my soul, my padishah, come hither": a call to the sun of sovereignty and being sent into exile.
Cûdî's kıta on appearance and essence: a flower that looks beautiful from afar and pleasant close up, but when it opens fully reveals nettles, and the bitter meaning in a word.
A ghazal with the refrain "ruby" whose opening is almost identical to one by Mesîhî: a ruby blushing with shame, ruby tears on thorn-lashes, a stone coloured by the sun, a heart that breaks.
When God's voice comes from a carpenter's saw and a church bell the poet dances; "Lâ taknatû" is heard from the cup, and sweet speech is an inheritance from Fatima's line.
Mihrî Hatun's "sen gideli" ghazal of separation, a nazire of Ahmed Paşa's famous poem: a lament in which the whole world has grown narrow, and the history of the refrain.
Münîrî's ghazal with the refrain "bahs", also copied into the Câmi‘u'n-nezâ'ir of 1512: a dispute over the lip, the knotty problems of a lock, and a heart that silences the lover.
Prince Bayezid's murabba with the refrain "my friend, you are young; do not make bloodshed your law"; Filiz Kılıç counts it among poems of counsel to the padishah.
Cûdî's ghazal "Prayer" with the refrain "God is greatest": Sufi meanings given to takbir, standing, bowing, prostration and sitting, bowing heavens, annihilation and subsistence.
A spring ghazal that turns "to the knowing one a sign is enough" into "a single rose is enough": sidelong glances, hot-blooded wine and a raw cup, and a hyacinth in mourning black.
A return to the story of Sinai: a manifestation that shatters mountains, a lover who fears majesty, a six-door bewilderment and a beloved whose pardon grows with every cup.
Mihrî Hatun's near-colloquial ghazal that curses the rival: the arrowheads of the eyelash, the evil eye, the wish that his bran run out, and the lover who gave her toil to the wind.
Münîrî's ghazal rhyming in "-âc": moons bringing tribute to the crown of beauty, bloody tears stamped like coin on gold, the pulse of the flask, and death's poison as the only cure.
Prince Bayezid's murabba with the refrain "come, come, O my soul, or else your absence will destroy me": Mecnun and Ferhad, the roasted heart, rose and laughter, and an oath.
Cûdî's ghazal telling life and death in terms of chemistry and grammar: a compound dissolved, wine turned to vinegar, man become a weak letter, and the sword of the spirit drawn from its sheath.
Each couplet counts a lack, and the refrain is built on the Turkish suffix "-suz": faithless, measureless, without cure. A heart without love falls to ruin like a land without a sultan.
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