POEMS BY NAZIM HIKMET

COPYRIGHT, 1954, BY MASSES & MAINSTREAM, INC.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

First Printing: January, 1954

A MASSES & MAINSTREAM PUBLICATION

Published in January, 1954, by MASSES & MAINSTREAM, INC. 832 Broadway, New York 3, N. Y. PRINTED IN U.S.A.

CONTENTS A Note on Nazim Hikmet, by Samuel Sillen Optimism Perhaps Farewell Microcosm The Wall of Imperialism Like a Song Sung Together Drizzling It Is Snowing In the Night About Victory Letters From Prison (1942-1946) From the Epic of the Second World War Advice to a Fellow Prisoner Your Hands and Their Lies Angina Pectoris About Death Plea The Funniest Creature The Twentieth Century To Paul Robeson The Enemies The Fifth Day of a Hunger Strike Morning That Is the Question Evening Stroll A Sad Freedom

A NOTE ON NAZIM HIKMET

By Samuel Sillen THE POETRY OF Nazim Hikmet first reached us in America during the world-wide movement that won his release in 1950 from a Turkish dungeon where be had been tormented for thirteen long years. We felt an immediate kinship with the poet who from a distant prison wrote to Paul Robeson:

“They are scared, Negro brother, Our songs scare them, Robeson.”

And as we read his verse it seemed incredible that we should have made his acquaintance so late. For here, unmistakably, was an artist who belonged with Neruda and Aragon among the great poets of our age. We learned that his poems, smuggled out of prison, were passing from hand to hand throughout Turkey. They appeared without his name, yet they were unfailingly recognized. For the oppressed people of his land saw Nazim Hikmet’s signature in the plain speech which is their speech, in the daring realism, the irresistible optimism and love and longing for freedom. And across the frontiers his lines rang out to all people who treasure beauty and peace. Born in Istanbul, in 1902, the son of a high government official, Nazim Hikmet started writing poetry at the age of fourteen, while a student at the Naval Academy. Following World War I, when large sections of Turkey were occupied by the forces of Anglo-American imperialism, he joined the national independence movement. Escaping from Istanbul, he came in close contact with the peasants and workers who inspired his militant poems. He abandoned his naval career and took part in the bourgeois nationalist revolt between 1919 and 1922 against the Ottoman rulers backed by the Allied powers. The young poet was deeply stirred by the Socialist Revolution in Russia, and in a later autobiographical work he vividly describes how he, the grandson of a pasha, became a Communist. His acceptance of Marxism was indeed the turning point in his life and poetry. To see socialism in the making, Hikmet visited the young Soviet state in the early 1920’s, at a time, he wrote, “when the waves were storming the heavens, when one-sixth of the globe had given the wheel of history a sharp push forward...” In Moscow be developed a close friendship with Mayakovsky, whose poetry, with its directness and its strong accent on serving as well as leading the people, was to influence his own work powerfully. Upon his return to Turkey in 1925, Hikmet was seized by the police and thrown into the Ankara jail for three years. From then on his life was to be a series of heresy trials

and jail sentences in the midst of which he turned out ever more popular poems, plays, political essays. In his poems of the 1920’s and 1930’s, deeply imbued with patriotism, he continued to attack the capitalist powers that threatened a new world slaughter. In other writings he held up to contempt those hirelings of the imperialists who were betraying progressive Turks to the political police. “Enter a house where there is a plague, but do not take one step across a threshold where there is an agent provocateur, “he wrote in typical vein. “And if your hand accidentally touches his, wash it seven times. And I will tear up my only holiday shirt and give it to you for a towel.” In 1938 the great people’s poet of Turkey was given a 28-year jail sentence by a court holding star chamber proceedings aboard a battleship. It was charged that some of his poems had been found among Black Sea sailors and Military Academy soldiers. Actually these poems were then available in any bookstore. But this did not prevent a conviction for “spreading communistic ideas,” a phrase which Hitler had already made familiar and which McCarthyism was to echo in our own land. But nothing could silence Nazim Hikmet, as we can see from the poems in this collection. Despite an ailing heart and the sadism of his jailers, be rose to new heights of creative power during the thirteen years of his imprisonment. In our time we have had a great literature produced in prison by dauntless anti-fascist fighters. We have had Julius Fuchik’s Notes From the Gallows, the letters of Danielle Casanova, the last testament of Gabriel Pen, and indeed the letters and poems of American political prisoners. Nazim Hikmet’s songs from jail are noble and triumphant. In solitary confinement the fighter-poet warms his cold cell with “the great flame of anger and proud hope.” It is he who sustains those who are not behind bars. Keenly attuned to everything that goes on in the outside world, he writes poems of towering force during World War II, impatiently awaiting the rout of the Nazis, exulting in the power of the Soviet people to defend socialism. His humor, his faith, his love of the people cannot be quenched. “My strength in this big world,” he writes, “lies in not being alone.” And he is with the fighters for happiness everywhere, in Spain, in China, in India, in Africa, in our own country. The prison walls disappear as he sees his brothers everywhere bent over him in the night, and his heart swells with pride and gratitude. His release in 1950, following a hunger strike that brought him close to death, was a joyous triumph for his friends throughout the world. It was made possible by the defenders of peace who had found inspiration in his songs. Progressive American writers took a modest part in the fight for his freedom with a protest demonstration, sponsored by Masses & Mainstream, in front of the Turkish consulate in New York. They were aware that U.S. imperialism bears a heavy responsibility for the fact that reaction rules in Turkey, financed and armed by the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan, and NATO. Our link with the life of

Nazim Hikmet is by no means remote. His latest poems, written in the Soviet Union, in the Chinese People’s Republic, in Czechoslovakia and other democratic countries where he has found a welcome refuge, seem addressed directly to us with their warnings against resurgent fascism and the drive of Wall Street to a new war of world conquest. Students of Turkish literature agree that Nazim Hikmet’ s poetry launched a revolution not only in content but in form. He abandoned both the complicated Arabic meters of the old palace poetry and the simpler but static meter introduced in the past century by bourgeois writers. He has created a distinctive rhythm, with alternating long and short lines, unrhymed. Hikmet also broke with the stilted conventions of traditional poetic language; his speech is that of the common folk, whose crisp images and wise proverbs he weaves into his verse. How much is lost in translation we cannot, of course, say. But certain it is that in the following poems we encounter a shining miracle of clarity and directness, a fusion of political and personal strength which achieves extraordinary richness of feeling. In a recent letter to young French poets, Hikmet spoke of the need to achieve above all a lucid, full communication with audiences of plain people. He is scornful of those decadents who perversely to be measured by the smallness of their coterie. Few living poets have so amply and persuasively demonstrated the truth that poetry draws its main strength from the struggles and hopes of the people. His verses ring with partisanship. There is no division between Hikmet the political poet and Hikmet the lyrical poet. With consummate artistry he has achieved that synthesis of the fighter and the creator, the distinct individual and the representative man of the masses, which is the hallmark of greatness in our time.

OPTIMISM We will see beautiful days, children we will see sunny days. We will sail our speedboats into the open sea, children we will sail them into the bright blue open sea. … Imagine going full speed the motor turning

the motor roaring. Oh children who can tell

how wonderful to kiss when your speed reaches 100 miles…

True for us today there are flower gardens on Fridays, on Sundays

only on Fridays only on Sundays. …

True today we admire the stores on lighted streets

as if listening to a fairy tale, those stores with glass walls

seventy-seven stories high. True when we cry for an answer

the black book opens for us: the jail. Leather belts seize our arms

broken bones blood. True now on our table

there is meat but once a week. And our children come home from work

like pallid skeletons. True now.... But believe me will see beautiful days, children we will see sunny days. We will sail our speedboats into the open sea we will sail them into the bright blue open sea...

1930

PERHAPS

Perhaps I,

long before that day Swinging at the end of the bridge Will cast my shadow on the asphalt Perhaps I,

long after that day A trace of gray beard on my clean-shaven chin

Will still be alive And I,

long after that day If I remain alive

Leaning against the walls in the city squares,

Will play the violin on holiday evenings For the old men who, like me, survived the last struggle All around us lighted sidewalks in a wonderful night And the footsteps of new people

Singing new songs.

1930

FAREWELL Farewell

my friends farewell! I am carrying you in my heart

deep in my heart and my struggle in my mind. Farewell

my friends farewell! Don’t line up on the shore like birds in picture-cards

to wave kerchiefs at me I want none of this. From head to toe I see myself in the eyes of my friends Oh friends brothers in struggle brothers in work

comrades Farewell without words. The nights will fasten a lock on the door The years will knit their net on the windows And I will shout the song of the prison As a fighting song. We will meet again, my friends, we will meet again Together we will laugh at the sun Together we will fight Oh friends

brothers in struggle brothers in work

comrades Farewell.

1931

MICROCOSM1 When the starlight flowing into my eye like a golden drop Pierced the darkness

of space for the first time,

there wasn’t one single eye on the earth looking into the sky.... The stars were old,

the earth was a child.

1 This is a fragment from an epic on the life and death of an Indian revolutionary, Benerjee, published in 1934.

The stars are far from us

but so very far so very far. … Our world is small among the stars

but so very small so very small. … And Asia

is one fifth of the world, And India

is a country in Asia. Calcutta is a city in India Benerjee is a man in Calcutta. And I am bringing you the news: In India

In the city of Calcutta they stopped on his way A man who was walking

and they chained him.

And I don’t bother anymore to lift my head toward the bright skies. If the stars are far,

if the earth is small I don’t care at all

I don’t mind. … I want you to know that I find

more astonishing more powerful more mysterious and gigantic

THIS MAN

stopped on his way and chained.

1934

THE WALL OF IMPERIALISM (Written about the Wall of Imperialism surrounding the East that was shoved back into the Mediterranean Sea from Izmir and will soon be forced back to the Indian Ocean from Bombay.) That wall That wall is rising like a second Balkan in the Balkans. That wall, that wall… They are shooting our people

in front of that wall! Every single foot of land along that wall has its long epic, as long

as that wall. They are plucking the male organs

of those who die in front of that wall to make youth serums for the strawlike, syphilitic skeletons

of the millionaires! The millionaires

buried in the flesh of whores are listening like a radio-concert

to the death orders given in front of that wall

with bullet sounds! That wall

there is a mobilization in front of that wall. A mobilization more widespread

more accursed than in 1914....

Just as darkness

in the sunlight runs to hide in a hole imperialists are running

to this mobilization... The League of Nations of the British warships the diplomat with gunpowder-scented white gloves

the producer of rotten human flesh the imperialist general, the Second International, The philosopher who fertilizes and digs the soil

of “Religion” to pick up its poisonous flowers, and writes his works on bank-notes, The poet in love with permanganate, the chemist who sells death rays all are mobilized mobilized under the banner of that wall. That wall That wall, that wall, They are shooting our people in front of that wall....

LIKE A SONG SUNG TOGETHER2

(In the preface to the “Epic of Sheik Bedreddin,” published in 1936, Nazim explains that while in prison he read a distorted history of a popular uprising that took place in Turkey in the fourteenth century. He felt so disgusted with the biased and sketchy treatment of this revolt that he decided to write a long epic which would do it justice. Nazim wanted to show that Turkish history is not devoid of heroic uprisings of the downtrodden masses against their oppressors. The uprising of Sheik Bedreddin was not confined to the Turkish masses. The Greek and Jewish inhabitants of the region called Karaburun, in the western part of Anatolia, across from the island of Chios, also participated in this struggle for a better life. The peasant disciple of Sheik Bedreddin, Mustafa Berklujeh, led the revolting people in afight against the overwhelming forces of the Ottoman Empire headed by the Royal Prince Murad. The movement of Sheik Bedreddin was a primitive type of communism aiming at common ownership of land, tools, foodstuffs, clothes. The movement was crushed in a brutal way. Sheik Bedreddin and Mustafa Berldujeh were hanged They became martyrs and their followers never lost their faith in ultimate victory.)

It was hot very hot The heat was like a knife with a bloody handle, with a dull blade. It was hot The clouds were loaded,

ready to burst to burst right away.

Without moving he looked down from the rocks his eyes, like two eagles, descended over the plain There the softest and hardest the stingiest and most generous the most loving the greatest and most beautiful woman the EARTH was about to give birth to give birth right away.

It was hot 2 From the “Epic of Sheik Bedreddin.”

He watched the horizon at the end of the earth with knitted eyebrows. Plucking children’s heads like bloody poppies in the fields, dragging naked shrieks in its wake, a five-crested fire came gushing from the horizon- the Royal Heir Murat was coming. The Royal order issued to Murat was to reach the land of Aydin and fall on Mustafa, the follower of Bedreddin. It was hot Mustafa the follower of Bedreddin looked he looked, Mustafa the peasant

looked without fear without anger without a smile

he looked straight ahead standing erect he looked.

The softest and hardest the stingiest and most generous the most loving the greatest and most beautiful woman the EARTH was about to give birth

to give birth right away.

He looked From the rocks Bedreddin’s braves looked at the horizon The end of this earth was getting closer and closer on the wings of a bird of death carrying a Royal order. Those men looking down from the rocks had opened this earth with its grapes, its figs, its pomegranates, its cattle with hair blonder and milk thicker than honey,

its narrow-hipped and lion-maned horses, had opened it like a brother’s table with no walls and no boundaries.

It was hot He looked Bedreddin’s braves looked at the horizon

The softest and hardest the stingiest and most generous the most loving the greatest and most beautiful woman the EARTH was about to give birth to give birth right away. It was hot the clouds were loaded the first drop of rain, like a sweet word was about to fall to the ground Suddenly,

as if flowing from the rocks, pouring from the skies, growing out of the ground

like the latest product of this earth, Bedreddin’s braves jumped on the Royal Heir’s army They were clad in seamless white shirts, bare-headed

bare-footed, their swords naked. They fought fiercely

Turkish peasants from Aydin Greek sailors from Chios Jewish merchants

the ten thousand comrades of Berklujeh Mustafa plunged like ten thousand axes

into the forest of the enemy. The ranks with red and green flags,

ornamented shields and bronze helmets were torn into pieces but when in the pouring rain the day passed into evening the ten thousand were but two thousand.

To be able, singing all together

to pull the nets together from the sea, working the iron into a lace together,

to be able to plough the land and eat all together the figs as sweet as honey, to be able to say: All together Everywhere

In everything But on the cheek of the beloved, the ten thousand gave their eight thousand.

They were defeated. On the seamless white shirts of the vanquished The victors

wiped their bloody swords And the earth they bad tilled together

with brotherly hands like a song sung together

was trodden under the hoofs of horses born in the Palace of Edrine.

1936

DRIZZLING3 It is drizzling, scarily in a low voice like a talk of treason. It is drizzling like a renegade’s white and naked feet running on the damp and dark earth. It is drizzling. In the market of Serez in front of a coppersmith’s shop my Bedreddin is hanging on a tree. It is drizzling. It is late on a starless night. Getting soaked in the rain the naked flesh of my sheik is swinging

from a leafless branch. It is drizzling. The market of Serez is mute, the market of Serez is blind. 3 From the “Epic of Sheik Bedreddin.”

In the air the cursed sadness of silence and blindness The market of Serez has covered its face with its hands. It is drizzling

1936

IT IS SNOWING IN THE NIGHT Neither to hear voices from the world beyond nor strive to bring into my verses the “unfathomable” nor search for the rhyme with the care of a jeweler, no beautiful words, profound discourse Thank God

I am above well above this tonight.

Tonight I am a street singer, there is no talent in my voice; my voice is singing for you a song you will not bear. It is snowing in the night, You are at the door of Madrid. In front of you an army

killing the most beautiful things we own, hope, yearning, freedom and children,

The City.... It is snowing And perhaps tonight your wet feet are cold. It is snowing And while I am thinking about you a bullet might be hitting you right now; then for you no more snow, wind, day or night... It is snowing. Before you stood at the door of Madrid

saying “no pasaran” you must have been living somewhere. Who knows Perhaps You came from the coal mines of Asturias Perhaps around your head a bloody bandage hides a wound you got in the North. And perhaps you were the one who fired the last shot in the suburbs while the “Junkers” were burning Bilbao. Or perhaps you were a hired hand on the farm of some Count Fernando Valeskeras de Cordoban Perhaps you had a small shop on the “Plaza del Sol” you sold colorful Spanish fruits. Perhaps you had no craft, perhaps you had a beautiful voice. Perhaps you were a student of philosophy or law and your books were crushed by the wheels of an Italian tank on the campus of your University. Perhaps you did not believe in heaven and perhaps you have on your chest a little cross hanging on a string. Who are you, what is your name, when were you born? I have never seen, I will never see your face. Who knows Perhaps it looks like the faces of those who beat Kolchak in Siberia; Perhaps it looks a little like the face of someone who lies on the battlefield of Dumlupinar4 you might even look something like Robespierre. I have never seen, I will never see your face, you have never heard, you will never hear my name. There are between us seas and mountains,

my cursed helplessness, and the “Committee of Non-Intervention.”

I cannot come to you I cannot even send you

a case of cartridges fresh eggs or a pair of woolen socks. And yet I know, in this cold snowy weather your wet feet guarding the door of Madrid are cold like two naked children.

I know, everything great and beautiful there is, everything great and beautiful man has still to create that is, everything my nostalgic soul hopes for Smiles in the eyes

of the sentry at the door of Madrid. And tomorrow, like yesterday, like tonight I can do nothing else but love him.

December 25, 1937

ABOUT VICTORY

Your hands pressed on the wound

biting your lip till it bleeds you must bear the awful pain.

Hope is now but a bare and ruthless shriek.

Victory will be snatched with teeth and nails

and nothing will be forgiven. The days are dark the days are bringing news of death. The enemy is harsh cruel and sly. Our men are dying in the struggle

- Yet how they deserved to live – Our men are dying

- so many of them – As if with their songs and flags

they were out for a parade on a holiday so young so reckless... The days are dark the days are bringing news of death. With our own hands we burned most beautiful worlds and our eyes can no longer cry, Leaving us a little sad and hard

our tears are gone so this is why

we have forgotten how to forgive... The goal we have to reach

will be reached shedding blood, Victory will be snatched

with teeth and nails and nothing will be forgiven.

1941

LETTERS FROM PRISON (1942-1946)

I My only one in your last letter

You say: “My head is aching

my heart is bewildered.” you say:

“If they hang you If I lose you

I cannot live.” You will live my darling wife, My memory will fade like black smoke in the wind. You will live, red-haired sister of my heart. In the twentieth century

mourning the dead lasts but one year.

Death... A corpse swinging at the end of a rope, I cannot resign my heart

to such a death. But be assured my beloved that if the hairy hand of the hangman

ties a rope around my neck,

they will look in vain into the blue eyes of Nazim

to see fear.

In the dim light of my last morning I will see my friends and you, and I will only take to the grave the sorrow of an unfinished song. My wife, my own my tender-hearted bee with eyes sweeter than honey! Why did I ever write you they wanted a death sentence, The trial is only just starting and a man’s head cannot be plucked like a turnip. Don’t give it another thought. All this is a distant prospect, if you have some money buy me flannel drawers: I have sciatic pains in my leg. And don’t forget the wife of a prisoner must always have cheerful thoughts.

II The wind flows and passes, The same cherry branch never swings twice in the same wind. On the tree the birds are singing: Wings want to fly. The door is closed: it has to be forced open. I want you: Life should be beautiful like you, A friend, a beloved like you... I know, the banquet of misery has not yet come to an end, But it will end.

III Kneeling I am looking at the earth

I am looking at the branches with their bright blue blossoms You are like the spring earth my beloved

I am looking at you. Lying on my back I see the sky You are like spring, you are like the sky

My beloved I see you.

At night, in the country, I built a fire, I touch the fire You are like a fire lit under the stars My beloved I am touching you. I am among men, I love mankind I love action I love thought I love my struggle

You are a human being inside my struggle my beloved I love you.

IV

Beyond description - they say - the misery of Istanbul, Starvation - they say - is reaping so many lives, Tuberculosis - they say is so widespread. Tiny little girls they say - in back alleys, in movie houses. Bad news is coming from my distant home town: the city of honest, industrious, poor people My real Istanbul. My darling, it is the place you live in, It is the city I carry on my back, in my bag Wherever I am exiled, wherever I am jailed, I bear in my heart like a sharp pain caused by the loss of a child. It is the city I carry in my eyes like your image.

V It is nine o’clock the bell rang on the square the cell doors will be closing any minute. Prison lasted a little too long this time

eight years. To live is a hopeful job my beloved To live: it’s just as serious as to love you To think of you is a beautiful a hopeful thing... But hope does not satisfy me anymore I don’t want to listen to a song I want to sing my own song.

VI Warm and lively like blood rushing from a vein the South winds are blowing. Listen to the tunes the pulse beats slower. It must be snowing on top of Uludagh4 and the bears up there on the reddened chestnut leaves must be lost in a sweet and beautiful sleep. In the plain the willows must be undressing The silkworms will soon shut themselves in. Autumn will soon be over The earth is about to fall sound asleep Another winter will pass and we will warm ourselves up at the fire of our wrath and of our sacred hope.

VII Our son is sick His father is in jail Your heavy head is resting on your tired hands We are at the same point, this world and ourselves. Men will carry men From bad days to better days Our son will get well His father will come out of jail You will smile deep in your golden eyes We are at the same point, this world and ourselves.

4 Mount Olympus, near Bursa

VIII The most beautiful ocean is the one we have not yet seen, The most beautiful child has not yet grown up. Our most beautiful days are those we have not yet lived. And the most beautiful things I would like to tell you I have not yet told.

IX I saw you in my dream last night you lifted your head, you looked at me with your amber eyes your moist lips were moving,

but I couldn’t hear your voice. Somewhere in the dark night the clock strikes like bright news. I can hear eternity whispering in the air

“The Song of Memo”5 in my canary’s red cage, in a ploughed field the noise of the growing seeds cracking in the earth, and the righteous uproar of a glorious crowd. Your moist lips were moving

but I couldn’t hear your voice. I woke up swearing. I had fallen asleep on my book.

Among all these voices, didn’t I hear your voice too?

FROM THE “EPIC OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR”

5 Memo was a “Robin Hood” who, with his band, robbed the rich to give to the poor. “The Song of Memo” is a folk song in his praise.

We who had a pleasant time in this world

without spoiling our hands in drudgery could we say that we have lived?

It would be the same thing even if we survived for another hundred years there is only today,

there is no yesterday; And the end of that hundred years too will come soon. I envy Bedreddin, Darwin, Pasteur, Gorky, Marx,

and Edison; Believe me, not for their fame and their reputation, The Mosque of Sultan Selim is still standing in Edrine Though Sinan has passed away A long time ago…

His knees thrust up his hand as furrowed as a ploughed field. - Oh My Lord, thought Jevdet Bey, how can a man be so tired. How many hours does he work every day? twelve? thirteen? fifteen? Who knows what he is thinking about? My God, how little I know about real men. And how strange, they are as much alike as two apples, this man

What I envy them for is their having fought and created with love and enthusiasm Yes

Sir, their having lived a hundred percent as long as they were alive.

***

Jevdet Bey was lost in contemplation of the stars the sky was like a sparkling, phosphorescent sea. The sky was tired, endless, gloomy and warm

Jevdet Bey put his glasses on with great seriousness (as if there was a book in the sky and he was

going to read it.) - Like slave-ships with black sails

lands loaded with men are passing, following each other: Africa, the Pacific Islands, China, India, the Near and Middle East (including Anatolia)

without counting the merchants, manufacturers, lords and so on, one and a half billion

not match sticks but MEN.

One and half billion men are passing through the sky... Jevdet Bey is thinking tirelessly.

There are a lot of beautiful things in this world which make life worth living

and yet, apple of my eye, the men in the black-sailed ships… For a long time Jevdet Bey could not take out of his mind

the image of these black-sailed ships Then a single man sitting, all huddled up,

appeared in front of him, he saw him clearly as if he could touch him:

he could see him squatting on the quay below and up in the stars.

and for instance a king, an emperor.

Both eat, digest and eject In this respect they are no different from the caterpillar, the elephant, or even the artichoke. And the king, the emperor… How did the king - the emperor, get into my mind? I saw him in a film recently, he was watching a football match he was making funny sounds, clapping his hands yes sir, he looks a little like a simpleton. How strange His Majesty’s wife is a member of the grocers’ class Well anyway a freckled, fat woman she should only know what I think of her... Jevdet Bey laughed his big white mustache escaped from between his teeth he looked at the stork sleeping under an orange tree.

- How lucky you are, he said, how lucky you are Pilgrim Father you are not able to think.

No, I am lying, apple of my eye, to be able to think is happiness, a dreadful happiness sometimes but happiness anyhow.

Jevdet Bey put his big mustache back in his mouth he closed his eyes and enjoying his dreadful happiness

fell asleep on his easy-chair. I look up; I see a submarine up, high up above my head, yes sir, just like a fish, silent like a fish within its armor, in the water. The light up there is aqua green, yes sir. it’s all green up there, all bright millions of candles are shining up there like so many stars. Up there, Oh... my wandering soul, the first moving flesh of our world is up there, the secret voluptuousness of a silver washbowl, yes sir, the secret voluptuousness of a washbowl with a bird design. And the red hair of the woman in whose arms I am, Up there colorful weeds and rootless trees

and whirling creatures of the ocean world. Up there are life, salt and iodine, our beginning is up there, pilgrim father up there is our beginning.

**

Hans Muller from Munich,

before he became a submarine sailor in the spring of 1939

was the third private from the right in the fourth squad

of the sixth regiment of Hitler’s Storm Troops. Hans Muller from Munich used to love three things: 1—Golden-foamed barley water 2—Anna, plump and white like Prussian potatoes 3—Red cabbage Hans Muller from Munich recognized three duties: 1—To salute his superiors with lightning speed 2—To swear by his gun 3—To stop at least three Jews a day and curse their ancestors Hans Muller from Munich

had three fears in his mind, in his heart, on his tongue: 1—Der Fuehrer 2—Der Fuehrer 3—Der Fuehrer Hans Muller from Munich

had a happy life until the spring of 1939.

And he was surprised to hear Anna with her flesh as white as Prussian potatoes and her voice as stately as the C in a Wagnerian opera complain about the shortage of butter and eggs. He used to tell her: - Just think Anna, I will wear a new battle belt, I will wear shiny boots, You will wear wax flowers in your hair we will walk under swords crossed over our heads. And positively

we will have twelve children, all boys. Just think Anna

if in order to eat butter and eggs we don’t make guns and pistols,

how could our twelve children fight tomorrow? For they were never born, yes sir, for before his wedding night with Anna Hans Muller went to the war himself. And now, in the autumn of 1941,

at the bottom of the Atlantic he is standing in front of me. His thin blond hair is wet

bitterness on his red, pointed nose and sadness at the edges of his thin lips. The twelve sons of the native of Munich could not fight Although he is standing next to me, he is looking at me from afar as the dead look at one’s face. I know that he will never see Anna again

never drink barley water and never eat red cabbage.

I know all these, apple of my eye, but he doesn’t know it, his eyes are a little wet

he does not wipe them. He has money in his pocket which does not increase or decrease. And the funniest of all

he can’t kill anybody anymore and he can’t die again.

Soon his body will swell, and he will go up; the seas will rock him and the fish will eat his pointed nose. Don’t say what a beast, Pilgrim father You too are a beast but an intelligent one. And Jevdet Bey looked fondly at his stork... The perfume of the organe trees pervaded the night. Jevdet Bey and his stork were in the garden. They had brought a radio to the garden. London was giving the Atlantic war news. Jevdet Bey lost in his thoughts, was dreaming he was at the bottom of the Atlantic. Its long red bill

hanging on its white breast

its wings clipped short, standing on one leg the stork was dozing. Down in the port, the Mediterranean, naked, like a young mother.

**

The comrades are sound asleep Ahmet from Turkestan is sleeping in the hall on his right the Ukrainian Yuncherka the Annenian Sagamanyan on the top bed, the smell of sweating men, of army coats... Ivan sat on his bed and yawning bent down toward his boots. He took off the left one, then lifted up his head and listened: there was a hum outside the door opened wide,

the guard yelled: to arms! They jumped up, It was Ivan who was out first,

one foot with a boot the other without. The big forest on the south-west is burning the air is like blood flowing ceaselessly the guns are roaring, the guns are roaring… High above an air squadron passed. the first enemy tanks appeared in the south, six steel monsters following each other.

The year is 1941 the day June 22, Ivan had never quarreled with anybody in his life, he had never felt hatred toward any nation.

**

Under the snow from end to end under the snow the lonely street. Over the snow the partisan:

her feet naked her arms tied at her back in underwear,

She is walking before the bayonet

going from one end to the other. The guard was cold, they went to the shelter. The guard warmed himself up, they came out. This lasted from ten at night to two in the morning. At two o’clock the guard was changed And the partisan sat Motionless on the wooden bench. The partisan is eighteen years old. The partisan knew that she would be killed soon. To die and to be killed: the difference was small in the flame of her wrath. And she was too young and too healthy

to be afraid of death, to grieve. She looked at her bare feet: they were swollen they were frozen and chapped, and red all over. But the partisan

was beyond pain. She was wrapped in her anger and her faith

just as she was wrapped in her skin.

** Her name was Zoya, she told them she was called Tanya. Tanya! In the Bursa jail, your picture is in front of me. Perhaps you have not even heard the name of Bursa. My Bursa is a green and a gentle place. In the Bursa jail, your picture is in front of me.

The year is no more 1941 the year is 1945. Your people are not defending the gates of Moscow anymore

At the gates of Berlin your people, our people,

all the people of an honest world, are fighting.

1945

ADVICE TO A FELLOW PRISONER Just because you did not give up your hopes, for the world, for your country, and for humanity they either send you to the gallows, or put you in jail, for ten years, for fifteen years or, who cares, for even longer.

Never say, “I wish I were swinging at the end of a rope like a flag” you must keep on living, perhaps, living is not a pleasure any more, but it is your duty to spite the enemy to live one more day. In your jail one part of yourself may be all alone like a stone at the bottom of the well But the other part of you should mingle so with the crowds of the world that in your jail you will tremble with every rustling leaf forty days distance away from you. It is sweet but dangerous to wait for letters, and to sing sad songs, to keep awake till morning with your eyes fixed on the ceiling. Look at your face whenever you shave forget your age, protect yourself from lice and from the spring evenings. And then you should never forget how to eat your bread to the last crumb and how to laugh heartily. And who knows, maybe your woman doesn’t love you anymore, (don’t say it is a small matter to the man in jail it is like a young limb broken off the tree). It is bad to dream about the rose and the garden; and good to think of the mountains and the seas I would advise you, to read and write without any rest,

to take up weaving, and to cast mirrors.

So it is not impossible to spend ten, fifteen years in a cell

or even more, it can be done Provided under your left breast That precious gem The jeweled heart stays bright.

YOUR HANDS AND THEIR LIES

Your hands, solemn like stones; sad, like tunes sung in prison; huge, massive, like draft animals; your hands like the angry faces of hungry children. Your hands, deft and industrious as bees, heavy, like breasts full of milk, valiant as nature, your hands hiding their friendly softness under rough skins. This world does not rest on oxen’s horns, this world is carried by your hands. And men, Oh my men! they feed you on lies, while you are starving while what you need is meat and bread. And without once eating at a white-clothed table to your heart’s content you leave this world and its fruit-laden trees. Oh men, my men! Especially those of Asia, of Africa, of the Near East, the Middle East, the Pacific Islands, and those of my country, who are more than seventy per cent of humanity, like your hands you are old and musing, yet like them, curious, enthusiastic and young. Oh men, my men! My European, my American, you are alert, you are daring, yet forgetful like your hands,

and like your hands you are easy to dupe, easy to deceive… Oh men, my men, if the antennas lie, if the posters on the walls lie, and the ad in the paper, if the printing presses lie, if the bare legs of the girls lie on the white screen, if the prayer lies,

if the dream lies, if the lullaby lies,

if the tavern fiddler lies, if after a hopeless day the moonlight lies at night, f the words lie, if the colors lie, if the voices lie, if all those who exploit the labor of your hands and everything and everyone lies,

except your hands it is to make them pliant like clay blind as darkness, stupid as shepherd dogs

and to keep them from revolting and from bringing to an end

the money-grabber’s kingdom and his tyranny over this transient though wonderful world where we are for but so short a stay.

ANGINA PECTORIS If the half of my heart is here, doctor, The other half is in China With the army going down towards the Yellow River. And then every morning, doctor, Every morning at dawn My heart is shot in Greece. And then when the prisoners fall asleep, When the last steps go away from the infirmary My heart goes off, doctor, It goes off to a little wooden house, in Istanbul. And then for ten years, doctor,

I have had nothing in my hands to offer my people, Nothing else but an apple, A red apple my heart. I watch the night through the bars And in spite of all these walls lying heavily on my chest My heart beats with the most distant star. It is on account of all that, doctor, And not because of arterio-sclerosis, Or nicotine or prison That I have this angina pectoris.

ABOUT DEATH Wont you sit down my friends, welcome to you, I know while I was asleep, you came into my cell through the window,

you did not upset the medicine bottle with the long neck, - nor the red pillbox.

Standing in front of my bed, with a starlit face, you are holding each other’s hands, welcome to you my friends. Isn’t that funny,

I thought you were dead. And since I don’t believe in

heaven or hell, nor in God, I was thinking: “Too bad, I didn’t have a chance to offer my friends even a cigarette.” Isn’t that funny

I thought you were dead. You came into my cell through the window, won’t you sit down my friends,

welcome to you. Why are you frowning at me,

Hashim son of Osman? Isn’t that funny,

weren’t you dead, brother? In the port of Istanbul

loading coal on a foreign cargo, didn’t you fall in a hold

with your basket full of coal? The winch pulled out your corpse,

and before quitting time, your red blood, washed your black head.

Who knows how much you suffered? Don’t stand please sit down; I thought you were dead. You came into my cell through the window, with your starlit face,

welcome to you my friends. Hello Yakup from Rocky village, didn’t you die too? Leaving to your children, your malaria and starvation,

on a hot summer day, weren’t you buried in the barren cemetery? So you did not die. And you, Ahmet Jemil, the writer! I saw with my own eyes, your coffin lowered in the grave. It even seemed to me, that the coffin was a little too short. Put this bottle down Ahmet Jemil! You did not give up your bad habits; this is medicine, not the raki bottle. Just to make fifty cents a day,

and to forget this lonely world, how much you used to drink.

I thought you were dead, standing in front of my bed, you are holding each other’s hands. Won’t you sit down my friends,

welcome to you. An old Persian poet says Death is just, it strikes with the same majesty,

the Shah and the poor man. Hashim, Why are you so surprised? Brother, haven’t you ever heard, of a Shah carrying a basket of coal and dying in a cargo-ship’s hold? And old Persian poet says Death is just. Yakup, the apple of my eye,

how broadly you smiled. You never smiled like this once

while you were alive; but let me finish.

An old Persian poet says, Death is just... Leave that bottle Abmet Jemil,

your anger is vain. I know for death to be just,

you say life should be just too. An old Persian poet... Friends why are you so angry,

why are you leaving me, my friends where are you going?

PLEA This country shaped like the head of a mare Coming full gallop from far off Asia To stretch into the Mediterranean This country is ours.

Bloody wrists, clenched teeth bare feet, Land like a precious silk carpet

This hell, this paradise is ours. Let the doors be shut that belong to others, Let them never open again Do away with the enslaving of man by man This plea is ours To live! Like a tree alone and free Like a forest in brotherhood This yearning is ours!

THE FUNNIEST CREATURE

Like the scorpion, brother, You are like the scorpion In a night of horror. Like the sparrow, brother, You are like the sparrow In his petty worries. Like the mussel, brother, You are like the mussel Shut in and quiet. You are dreadful, brother, Like the mouth of a dead volcano. And you are not one, alas! You are not five You are millions. You are like the sheep, brother, When the cattle-dealer, clad in your skin, lifts his stick Right away you join the herd Almost proud, you go running to the slaughter-house.

So you are the funniest creature Funnier even than the fish That lives in the sea yet does not know the sea. And if there is so much tyranny on this earth It’s thanks to you, brother, If we are starved, worn out, If we are skinned to the bones, If we are crushed like grapes to yield our wine – I can’t bring myself to say it’s all your fault, But a lot of it is, brother.

1948

THE TWENTIETH CENTURY “Let’s fall asleep now and wake up in a hundred years, my beloved. ...” J

NO I am not a deserter, Besides my century does not frighten me, My wretched century, Blushing from shame, My courageous century, great

and heroic. I have never grieved I was born too soon I am from the twentieth century

And I am proud of it To be where I am, among our people is enough for me And to fight for a new world.... “In a hundred years, my beloved.... No, earlier and in spite of everything -

My century dying and reborn My century whose last days will be beautiful My century will burst with sunlight, my beloved, like your eyes.

1948

TO PAUL ROBESON They don’t let us sing our songs, Robeson, Eagle singer, Negro brother, They don’t want us to sing our songs. They are scared, Robeson, Scared of the dawn and of seeing

Scared of hearing and touching. They are scared of loving The way our Ferhat7 loved. (Surely you too have a Ferhat, Robeson, What is his name?) They are scared of the seed, the earth The running water and the memory of a friend’s hand

Asking no discount, no commission, no interest A band which has never paused like a bird in their hands.

They are scared, Negro brother, Our songs scare them, Robeson.

October 1949

THE ENEMIES They are the enemies of the towel weaver Rejep from Bursa the enemies of the fitter Hasan from the Karabuk factory. They are the enemies of the poor peasant woman Matcheh the enemies of the farmhand Suleyman. They are your enemies, my enemies, the enemies of every thinking man. Our fatherland, which is the home of these people, they are, my beloved, the enemies of our fatherland. They are the enemies of hope, my beloved, the enemies of the running water of the fruit-laden tree, of a growing and improving life. For death has put its stamp upon their foreheads - decaying teeth, rotten flesh – They will tumble down and go away never to come back again. And surely, my beloved, surely, in this beautiful country, Liberty will walk around freely

will walk around in its most glorious outfit in workingman’s overalls.

1948

THE FIFTH DAY OF A HUNGER STRIKE Brothers, If I can’t tell you well What I have to tell you You will excuse me, I am slightly dizzy, nearly drunk, Not from raki From hunger, just a little bit. Brothers, Those of Europe, of Asia, of America, I am neither in jail nor on a hunger strike, In this month of May, I am lying on a lawn at night, Your eyes are close over my head, shining like stars, Like the hand of my mother,

The hand of my beloved, The hand of life.

Brothers, You have never deserted me, Neither me, nor my country, nor my people. As much as I love yours

You love mine, I know it. Thanks, brothers, thanks.

Brothers, I don’t intend to die, If I am murdered I will go on living among you, I know: I will live in Aragon’s poems - In his lines telling about the beautiful days to come – I will live in Picasso’s white dove, I will live in Robeson’s songs And above all,

And best of all, I will live in the victorious laughter of my comrade Among the dockers of Marseilles. To tell you the truth, brothers, I am happy, fully happy.

May 1950

MORNING I woke up. Where are you? In your own home. You still can’t get used To being in your own home when you wake up? It is one of the odd consequences Of staying in jail for 13 years. Who is the one sleeping next to you? It is not loneliness, but your wife She is sleeping soundly like the angels. Pregnancy becomes the woman. What time is it? Eight o’clock You are safe until evening Because it is not customary

for the police to raid a house during the day.

1951

THAT IS THE QUESTION All the wealth of the earth cannot quench their thirst They want to make a lot of money You have to kill, you have to die For them to make a lot of money. No doubt they don’t admit it openly They hang up colorful lanterns on the dry branches They send running on the roads glittering lies Their tails all covered with tinsel and spangles. In the market-place they are beating the drums; Under the tents, the tiger-man, the mermaid the headless-man, The acrobats in pink shorts on the straight wire All have heavily made-up faces.

To be duped or not to be duped

That is the question. If you are not duped you will live If you are duped you will not.

1951

EVENING STROLL

You are out of jail And no sooner out

You made your wife pregnant Offering her your ann You are strolling, in the evening, around your neighborhood Her belly comes up to her nose Gracefully she carries her sacred load. You are respectful and proud. The air is cool A coolness like the hands of a cold baby You feel like taking them in your palms and warming them. The cats of the neighborhood are at the butcher’s door On the top floor his curly wife Her breasts on the window sill

watching the evening. The half-lit sky is clear Right in the middle lies the evening star Like a glass of water, bright and shiny. The Indian summer lasted long this year Though the mulberry trees have turned yellow The figs are still green. Shahap the typographer, and the younger daughter of Yani the milkman Have gone out for an evening walk Their fingers clasped. The grocer Karabet’s lights are on. This Armenian citizen has not forgiven The massacre of his father in the Kurdish mountains But he loves you Because you too did not forgive Those who smeared this black stain on the forehead of the Turkish people. The tuberculars of the neighborhood

The bedridden patients Are looking through the window panes. The son of the washerwoman Huriye Sadness on his shoulders Is going to the coffee house. Rahnii Bey’s radio

is giving the news: In a country in the Far East People with yellow moon-shaped faces Are fighting a white monster. From your own people they sent there 4500 Mehmets To kill their own brothers. Your face is blushing

from anger and shame And not just in general A purely personal

a helpless sadness. It feels as if they had pushed your wife from behind rolled her on the ground

and she lost her baby; Or as if you were in jail again And they were forcing the peasant-gendarmes To beat the peasants. The night fell suddenly The evening stroll is over A police car turned into your street Your wife whispered:

Is it to our house?

A SAD FREEDOM You sell the care of your eyes, the sight of your hands You knead the dough of all earthly goods

Without ever tasting a single bite. With your great freedom you slave for others With the freedom of turning into Croesus

Those who make your mother weep You are free.

From the moment you are born they climb on your head

Their lie-mills grind endlessly throughout your life With your great freedom, your finger pressed to your temple, you think With the freedom of conscience

You are free. Your hanging head seems severed from our neck Your arms are dropping at your sides With your great freedom you roam around With the freedom of the jobless

You are free. You love your country as your dearest friend Some day they sell it, perhaps to America, And you too, with your great freedom, With the freedom of becoming an air base You are free. Wall Street grabs at your throat - their hands be cursed – Some day they send you to Korea perhaps. With your great freedom you fill a grave.... With the freedom of becoming the unknown soldier You are free.

I must live, not as a mere tool, a number, a means, I must live like a man, you say With your great freedom they fasten your handcuffs

With the freedom to be jeered, to be jailed, or even to be hanged You are free.

No iron curtain, no wooden curtain, no lace curtain in your life No need for you to choose freedom You are free. This freedom is a sad thing under the stars.