Nazim Hikmet. Some Poems

NAZIM HIKMET POEMS TRANSLATED BY NILŰFER MIZANOĞLU REDDY

Bare Feet The Pupils of the Hungry Ones The Song of the Sun Drinkers A Tale of Separation Testament Prison Letters: Istanbul Bitkiler Ipeklisinden Before the Time Runs Out, My Rose To Asian and African Writers From the Epic of the National Independence Struggle The Multitudes 1918-1919: The Story of the Black Snake The Month of August: Our Women Blue-Eyed Giant, Tiny Woman and Honeysuckle To Paul Robeson My Idea of a Sailor To my Uncle To my Martyred Uncle My own Uncle To my Counctry For my Martyred Uncle For my Martyred Uncle- 2 Samiye’s Cat The Youth [Untitled – 2 poems] In Five Lines

YALNAYAK

BARE FEET The sun over our heads a turban of fire. parched earth chariks* for our bare feet Beside us a peasant more dead than his old mule he's not beside us he's in our boiling blood. No wrap on the shoulders no whip in hand no horse, no cart no gendarmes we passed through villages like bear-dens muddy towns bald mountains. That's how we traveled in that land! We listened to the sound of stony fields in the watery eyes of the old oxen. We saw that the earth does not yield its golden ears of grain to black ploughs. We didn't travel as if in a dream No, we reached one rubbish heap after another. That's how we traveled in that land. We know what that land is longing for. This longing is made up like a materialist's mind, this longing is for matter matter! Low-lying *

charik – simple peasant shoe made of raw hide

hovels with dour façades are lined up in streets like mole holes. Jinn-eyed pigeon-tongued wearers of fine cotton turbans sit cross-legged in stores. In front of them peasants with chapped soles in rawhide chariks. A burly gendarme drags a couple who committed adultery in a field. In the coffee house the master dervish hankering after the novice intones deeply "Lahavle-ve-la" spits on the faces of the couple. Over there in this sleepy squalid run-down town love is not romantic Its soul is hungry for two lively words: STEAM ELECTRICITY! If you're not blind you can see that this soil-faced farmhand and his sunken-chested son - a survivor of the Caucasus front - have the fingernails of the tax collector clawing at their heads he wants to be buried right here with his daughter his wife his oxcart clutching the last clump of his soil and die with them right here and be buried with them. The mountains and the fields are longing passionately like a desiring

woman for machines with souls of steam every cog with 1000 horsepower becoming iron and ploughing the earth like churning water!

O gentlemen with yellow glass bellies that gurgle like hookahs O gentlemen riding in your three-horse carriages sighing â la Pierre Loti to deaf noseless blind peasants gentlemen with bridled mouths and hands holding pens! We're sick and tired of your lying tales. From now on you must get into your heads: Peasants are longing for land and the land is longing for machines! 1922

ACLARIN GOZBEBEKLERI THE PUPILS OF THE HUNGRY ONES Not a few not five or ten thirty million hungry ones are ours! They belong to us! We belong

to them! The waves belong to the sea! The sea belongs to the waves! Not a few not five or ten 30,000,000 30,000,000! Hungry ones A lined up hungry ones Neither men, nor women, nor boys, nor girls skinny stunted crooked trees with crooked branches! Neither men, nor women, nor boys, nor girls Hungry ones all lined up hungry ones! They are the walking scraps of those parched lands! Some of them are carrying their bloated bellies that are knocking against their bony knees! Some of them nothing but skin only their eyes are living! From far all black protrusions stretch point by point like a vein piercing nail of a horseshoe mad pupils, pupils! Ah those those who have such a pain, those who stare in such a way Our pain is endless! endless! endless! But our beliefs cannot be done away with! Our breasts are hard as iron because our pain is 30,000,000

mad pupils! Pupils! 0, man! you listen to me with your mouth wide open! Perhaps behind my back you call me "insane" for howling my heart out! If you are a goose like the others if you can't grasp the meaning of my words Just look at my eyes; they are: Mad pupils Pupils! 1922

GUNESI ICENLERIN TURKUSU

THE SONG OF THE SUN DRINKERS This is a song: the song of those who drink the sun in earthen bowls! This is a tress: a tress of flame! it is twisting; it is burning like a bloody crimson torch on the dark brows of the heroes with bare copper feet! I too saw those heroes, I too braided that tress, I too crossed with them the bridge going to the sun! I too drank the sun in earthen bowls. I too sang that song! Our hearts took their speed from the earth we stretched ourselves

by tearing the mouths of golden-maned lions! We sprang: we rode the lightning wind! The eagles swooping from the cliffs flapped light-gilded wings. Flame-wristed riders whipped prancing horses! There is a raid on a raid to the sun! We will conquer the sun the conquest of the sun is near! Those who cry in their houses and carry their tears like a heavy chain around their necks should not travel with us! Those who live on the crust of their hearts should not follow us! Here: millions of red hearts are burning in the fire that fell from the sun! You too take your heart out from your rib cage; hurl it into the fire that fell from the sun throw your heart beside our hearts! There is a raid on a raid to the sun! We will conquer the sun the conquest of the sun is near! We were born from earth, fire, water, iron! Our wives nurse our babies with the sun, our copper beards smell of the earth! Our joy is hot!

hot like blood, hot like the "moment" that sizzles in the dreams of young men We hook our ladders to the stars stepping on the heads of our dead we rise toward the sun! Those who died died fighting; they are buried in the sun. We have no time for mourning. There is a raid on a raid to the sun! We will conquer the sun the conquest of the sun is near! Red vineyards of blood-speckled grapes are smoky! Heavy brick chimneys twisting, belching! The one at the head He who commands - yells! This voice! the force of this voice this force that blinds the wounded hungry wolves, this force makes them stop in their tracks! Order us to die order! We are drinking the sun in your voice! We are getting high, getting high!... On the smoky curtain of blazing horizons riders with sky-ripping lances are running! There is a raid on a raid to the sun! We will conquer the sun the conquest of the sun is near! The earth is copper the sky is copper.

Sing out the song of the sun drinkers, Sing out Let us all sing out! 1924

BIR AYRILIS HIKAYESI A TALE OF SEPARATION The man said to the woman: "I love you; and how, Like squeezing my heart in my palms like something made of glass breaking it madly until my fingers bleed." The man said to the woman: "I love you; and how miles and miles deep miles and miles wide one hundred percent, five hundred percent, infinity percent." The woman said to the man: "I have looked with my lips, with my heart, with my head; with love, with fear, with reverence at your lips, your heart, your head Whatever I am uttering now you have taught me like a whisper in the dark... And now I know: That the earth – - like a mother with a sunny face – has suckled her last most beautiful child... But what can I do? my hair is entangled with the fingers of the dying one I cannot free my head!

You have to keep walking after looking into the eyes of the newborn infant... You have to keep walking, leaving me behind..." The woman became silent. THEY EMBRACED A book fell to the ground ... A window was shut ... THEY PARTED ... 1932

VASIYET

TESTAMENT Comrades, if I don't have a chance to see that day, that is if I die before the liberation, take my body bury me in a village cemetery in Anatolia. On one of my sides lies farmhand Osman shot by Hasan Bey’s hired gun on my other side martyr Ayşe who died shortly after giving birth on the earth in the rye field. Let tractors and songs go by the road down the cemetery, in the light of dawn young people and the smell of burning gasoline, the fields belong to everyone, the canals are full of water, no drought, no fear of gendarmes. Of course we won't hear these songs, the dead lie stretched under the earth, the dead decay like black branches, under the earth deaf, dumb and blind. But I had sung these songs before they were made up, I had smelled the burning gasoline even before the tractors were designed. As to my silent neighbors, martyr Ayşe and farmhand Osman they bore that great longing all their lives perhaps without even noticing. Comrades, if I die before that day, - it looks like it may happen bury me in a village cemetery in Anatolia and if it is possible, if there is a plane tree over me no need for a piece of stone, or anything at all... April 27, 1953 Barhiva Sanatorium

PRISON LETTERS: ISTANBUL 1 My darling, heads forward. eyes open as far as one can see, red glow of burning cities, trampled crops endless stamping of feet go on and on. And people are slaughtered more easily more smoothly in larger numbers than the trees and the calves. My darling, In the din of stamping feet, in this massacre I happened to lose my freedom, my daily bread and you. yet in the midst of hunger, darkness and screams I never lost my faith for the days to come that would knock on our door with sunny hands. 2 I am so happy I was born into this world, I love its earth, its light, its struggle and its bread. Even if I know the earth's circumference to the last centimeter and not ignorant of its toy-like size next to the sun, I am still awed by the immensity of this world. I would have liked to wander around the world to see the fish, the fruits and the stars I had never seen before. But I took a trip to Europe only in books and in pictures I've never received a single letter with a blue stamp postmarked in Asia. Me and our neighborhood grocer, we are both totally unknown in America. But who cares! From China to Spain, from the Cape of Good Hope to Alaska In every sea mile and every kilometer I have friends and enemies. Friends to whom I've never said Hello, but we are willing to die for the same bread, the same freedom and longing.

And enemies who thirst for my blood as I thirst tor theirs. My strength comes, from not being alone in this big world. The world and its people are neither the secrets of my heart nor the enigmas of my learning. Saving my head from exclamation and question marks, I took my place in the great struggle freely and without worry. If I am not in this place just you and the earth are not enough for me. Although you are very beautiful and the earth is warm and lovely. 3 I love my country – I have swung on its plane trees, I was locked up in its jails. But nothing can take my blues away like the songs and tobacco of my country. My country – Bedreddin, Sinan, Yunus Emre and Sakarya… Lead covered domes and factory chimneys are the work of my people; their laughter under their droopy moustaches seems hidden even from themselves. My country: My country is vast – wandering from place to place it seems endless. Edirne, Izmir, Ulukışla, Maraş, Trabzon, Erzurum… I know the highlands of Erzurum only from songs, I am ashamed that I’ve never crossed the Taurus mountains, to go southward to meet the cotton pickers. My country: camels, trains, Ford cars, and sickly donkeys, poplars willows and the red earth. My country: Pine forests and spring waters, and the trout that loves the lakes in the mountains; a one pounder, scaleless, silver-skinned with red specks

swims in Bolu’s lake Abant. My country: Goats in the plains of Ankara – their long silky light brown hair glistening. Oily big hazelnuts of Giresun. Apples of Amasya with scented red cheeks, olives figs melons and bunches and bunches of grapes of many colors and then the black wooden plough then the black oxen then my hard-working, honest and brave people who are ready to welcome everything progressive, beautiful and good with the joyful enthusiasm of children half hungry, half full, half-slave…

BITKILER IPEKLISINDEN Plants from silken soft to bushy branching ones animals from furry to scaly houses from rough hair-tents to concrete buildings machines from airplanes to electric shavers and also the seas and the water in a glass and the stars and the sleeping mountains and the human being mingled with everything everywhere that's sweat on the brow lies in the books truth lies friend foe longing joy sorrow I passed through the crowd with the crowd that was passing through. August 14, 1959

HENUZ VAKIT VARKEN GULUM

BEFORE THE TIME RUNS OUT, MY ROSE Before the time runs out, my rose, before Paris is burned down and destroyed, before the time runs out, my rose, and my heart is still on its branch, I, one night, one of these May nights, holding you against the wall in Quai Voltaire, must kiss you on the lips then turning our faces toward Notre Dame we must gaze at its rose window my rose, suddenly you must embrace me, with fear, surprise and happiness, sobbing silently, the stars too must pour mixed with a drizzling rain. Before the time runs out, my rose, before Paris is burned down and destroyed, before the time runs out, my rose, and my heart is still on its branch, In this night of May we must pass by the quay under the willows, my rose, the weeping willows that are drenched. I must tell you the most beautiful couple of words of Paris, the loveliest and truest, then whistling some airs I must die of happiness and we must have faith in human beings. Up there stone houses without ledges or recesses stuck together and their walls are all moonlight and their windows straight up are sleeping standing up and on the shore across the Louvre bathed in floodlights our crystal palace illuminated for us. Before the time runs out, my rose, Before Paris is burned and destroyed,

before the time runs out, my rose, and my heart is still on its branch, in this night of May on the quay we must sit on the red barrels in front of the warehouses. The canal across fades into darkness. A barge is passing, my rose, let’s say hello, let’s say hello to the barge with the yellow cabin. Is she on her way to Belgium or to Holland? In the cabin door a woman with a white apron is smiling sweetly. Before the time runs out, my rose, before Paris is burned down and destroyed, before the time runs out, my rose... People of Paris, people of Paris, You mustn't let Paris be burned and destroyed... May 13, 1958

ASYA-AFRIKA YAZARLARINA TO ASIAN AND AFRICAN WRITERS My brothers and my sisters never mind my blond hair I am an Asian never mind my blue eyes I am an African where I come from trees don't cast shadows down below just like the ones you have where I come from the bread is in the jaws of the lion and the dragons lie in front of the fountains where I come from people die before reaching the age of fifty just like where you come from never mind my blond hair I am an Asian never mind my blue eyes I am an African eighty percent of my people are illiterate poems wander from mouth to mouth turning into songs poems can become banners where I come from just like the ones where you come from my brothers and my sisters our poems yoked to the skinny ox should be able to till the land our poems knee deep in mud should enter the rice fields our poems should be able to ask all the questions our poems should be able to gather all the lights our poems like the milestones should be able to stand at the crossroads see the approaching enemy before anyone else beat the tom-toms in the jungles and until on this earth not a single slave country or slave not a single atomic cloud remain our poems should be able to give all they have their minds, their souls and their lives for the great freedom. January 22, 1962 Moscow

FROM THE EPIC OF THE NATIONAL INDEPENDENCE STRUGGLE ONLAR THE MULTITUDES Those who are as numerous as ants in the earth, fish in the sea, and birds in the air; who are cowardly, brave, ignorant, learned, and child-like; those who destroy and create, only their adventures are in our book. Those who, deceived by the temptations of the traitor, drop to the ground the flags they were holding, and leaving the enemy in the battlefield run away home, those who draw their swords against scores of renegades, who laugh like a green tree, cry without reason, and curse mother and wife, only their adventures are in our book. Iron coal and sugar and red copper and textiles and love, cruelty and life and all the branches of industry and the sky and the desert and the blue ocean and the gloomy river beds and the ploughed soil and the cities their fate changes one morning at dawn, at dawn when from the edge of darkness they press their heavy hands against the earth and rise.

They are the wisest mirrors reflecting the most colorful shapes. In our century they were the victors, they were the vanquished. A great deal was said about them and about them it was said: they have nothing to lose but their chains.

KARAYILAN HIKAYESI 1918-1919 THE STORY OF BLACK SNAKE We have seen fire and treason We have endured We have endured everywhere We have endured in Izmir, Aydin and Adana, We have endured in Urfa, Maraş and Antep. The people of Antep are sharpshooters, they can shoot a flying crane right in the eye, a running rabbit on its hind leg. They stand on their Arab horses slender and tall like young green cypresses. Antep is a hot place Antep is a tough place The people of Antep are sharpshooters The people of Antep are brave. Black Snake before he became Black Snake was a farmhand in the Antep villages. Perhaps he was contented, or not contented, he had no time to think about such things. Black Snake before he become Black Snake used to live like a field mouse and was as cowardly as a field mouse. Bravery is possible only with horses, guns and land.

He did not possess horses or guns or land. His neck was as thin as a twig his head was enormous. When the enemy entered Antep the people of Antep brought him down from the pistachio tree that was hiding his fear. They put a horse under him and a Mauser rifle in his hand. Antep is a tough place. On the red rocks green lizards roam. In the air hot clouds drift forward and backward. The enemy held the hills, the enemy had guns. The people of Antep were held up in the flat plain. The enemy was pouring shrapnel the enemy was tearing the earth from its roots. The enemy held the hills The blood of Antep flew. The shelter of Black Snake before he became Black Snake was a rose bush in the fields. This bush was so tiny but his fear and his head were enormous he lay flat with his face down without putting a bullet in his rifle's barrel. Antep is a hot place Antep is a tough place The people of Antep, are sharpshooters. The people of Antep are brave. But the enemy had guns The die was cast, the people of Antep would abandon the flat plain to the enemy.

Before he became "Black Snake" Black Snake couldn't care less if Antep was given to the enemy until doomsday, They had never taught him to think. He lived on earth like a field mouse, and was as cowardly as a field mouse. His shelter was a rose bush, He was lying flat under the rosebush. From behind a white rock a black snake showed its head. Its skin was glistening its eyes redder than fire, its tongue fork-shaped. Suddenly a bullet came and hit its head the snake fell over motionless. Black Snake before he became Black Snake seeing the end of the black snake shouted at the top of his voice the first thought of his life And said: "Heed a lesson, my crazy heart, if death finds the black snake behind the white rock, it can find you too even if you hide in an iron trunk." And when he who had been as cowardly as a field mouse ran and sprang forward the people of Antep were aroused they followed him. They beat the enemy on the hills. And to him who had lived like a field mouse, who had been as cowardly as a field mouse they gave the name BLACK SNAKE. Black Snake said: "Let's have a war. Let's bring the fallen heads from Kilis roads, Let's finish up the enemy wherever he is, Shoot brave ones, shoot on our day of honor..." This is the story we have heard and put in the first chapter of our epic

just as it was told to us; About Black Snake whose fame lasted for years as the leader of his band and the people of Antep and Antep.

KADINLARIMIZ 1922 THE MONTH OF AUGUST OUR WOMEN The oxcarts were moving under the moonlight the oxcarts were going toward Afyon via Akşehir the land seemed endless the mountains were so far away, it looked like the travelers would never reach any place. The oxcarts were moving with their solid oak wheels and they were the first wheels turning in the moonlight Under the moonlight the oxen were puny and short as if they had come from a different tiny planet, their sickly, broken horns twinkled beneath their feet flowed the earth, the earth and the earth. The night was light and hot and in the oxcarts the dark blue grenades lay uncovered And women without letting each other know were eyeing in the moonlight the dead oxen and wheels left by the previous convoys And women our women: with their terrible blessed hands with their delicate small chins and enormous eyes our mothers, our wives, our sweethearts

those who die as if they had never lived and whose place at our table comes after our oxen's, those whom we abduct and then end up in prison, those in wheat and tobacco fields, in gathering wood and in markets those harnessed to the black ploughs those in stables in the glimmer of shiny knives stuck in the ground with their swaying heavy hips and cymbals women belonging to us, our women. Now under the moonlight following the oxcarts and cartridge boxes they moved with the same lightness at heart the same tired familiarity as though they were pulling the amber spiked stalks in the threshing fields and inside the steel crates of shrapnel scrawny-necked children were asleep And the oxcarts under the moonlight were going toward Afyon via Akşehir.

BLUE-EYED GIANT, TINY WOMAN AND HONEYSUCKLE He was a blue-eyed giant. He loved a tiny woman who dreamed of a tiny house. A house with a garden where many-colored honeysuckle bloomed. The giant loved as a giant loves. His hands were meant for gigantic tasks. He could neither build the frame nor ring the bell of a house with a garden where many-colored honeysuckle bloomed.

He was a blue-eyed giant. He loved a tiny woman. The woman was very, very tiny. She was hungry for a life of ease, she'd worn herself out on the giant's grand path. Saying goodbye to the blue-eyed giant, she took the arm of a wealthy midget and entered the house with a garden where many-colored honeysuckle bloomed. So now the blue-eyed giant can see it cannot even be a tomb for the great love of a giant, that house with a garden where many-colored honeysuckle bloomed.

TO PAUL ROBESON They don't let us sing our songs, Robeson, my songbird with the wings of an eagle, my Black brother with the pearly smile, they don't let us sing our songs. They are afraid, Robeson, afraid of the dawn, afraid to see, to hear, to touch – afraid to cry like the rain washing a naked body, afraid to laugh like sinking one's teeth into a hard quince. They are afraid to love, to love like Ferhad2 (surely you too must have a Ferhad, Robeson, what is his name?) They are afraid of the seed, of the earth and of the running water afraid to remember the hand of a friend, asking no discount, no commission, no interest – a hand that has never alighted like a lively bird in the palms of their hands. They are afraid of hope, Robeson, afraid of hope, hope! They are afraid, my songbird with the wing of an eagle, they are afraid of our songs, Robeson. October 1949

MY IDEA OF A SAILOR Steel hand, iron wrist, strong arm and piercing eyes, A broad chest and a sharp salute. All we need is the rolling seas... Copper faced, hot-blooded, full of life, 2

A legendary lover in Turkish folklore

A Turkish lad. He's the peerless pearl of the seas. That's my idea of a sailor. December 3, 1914

DAYIMA TO MY UNCLE You did not die You did not die You're still living You will always live In the heart of your country.

SEHIT DAYIMA TO MY MARTYRED UNCLE My martyred uncle, don't lament That you must be avenged Be calm Don't look at me and make me tremble Yes, you will be avenged You're the son of the martyrs You will be avenged You're the grandson of the Oguz.

BENIM DAYIM MY OWN UNCLE My uncle! My uncle! He was a great hero He was the one Who made my Turkish breast swell with pride He showed me great feats of heroism Always teaching me about great sacrifices Showing the proper way And suggesting the greatness Of giving your life For your country

1915

VATANA TO MY COUNTRY Ah my poor country Why is she crying like this Why because her children Don't take good care of her Son - If I don't take good care of you I should not deserve to be a Turk Look mother we're going To die for the country I'll go I'll die I won't come back Mother - Go my son go Serve your country Shed your blood Give all that you have for her Say goodbye to your betrothed, to your village Say goodbye to all that you have Son - Mother I am going Give my regards to my father Tell my beloved Not to cry for me March 8, 1915

SEHIT DAYIMA MABAT FOR MY MARTYRED UNCLE The skies will reverberate To avenge you The seas will roar To avenge you My martyred uncle, don't lament Be calm Don't look at me like that And make me tremble

FOR MY MARTYRED UNCLE - 2 He was the one who showed me the meaning of the Orient He was the one who taught me the arts of the Turks That's why I love my uncle In my heart I always keep The highest respect for him. June 1915

SAMIYE'NIN KEDISI SAMIYE'S CAT Her eyes were green like the seas Her white fur a heap of snow Her mouth adorned with mother-of-pearl teeth Her amorous gaze touched our souls When we loved her she fooled us and ran away When we caressed her she showed her claws She had the pride of a woman Lies poured out of her kohl-blackened eyes

GENCLIK THE YOUTH To My Father Cry over the tombstones of your friends For four years they were dying everywhere Today with their sacred sentiments The pitiful youth tells you to shut up Write with sorrow the elegy of those Who spilled their blood at the front Raise your voice in these years of grief For those who spilled their blood at the front Look at Anadolu without a sigh of lament Awaiting faithfully its final hour The road of the sky-high mountains Is covered with the bones and souls of brothers Go cry on those desolate roads today For four years they kept dying all over Today with their sacred sentiments When they say shut up to you... Shout! Ah youth! Winter 1920, Kadikoy

The air is like strained honey I went out hunting in the afternoon I fell in love with a gazelle Gazelles have black eyes But my gazelle has green eyes I dragged myself after her spitting blood Across from me opened the gate of Paradise 1949

You'll lie under the sun all naked

with your green eyes I'll bend over you I'll look at you as if I am watching the most amazing event of the universe You'll put your arms around my neck Your weight full of life around my neck I'll taste immortality From your bright red mouth

1949

IN FIVE LINES To be able to defeat the lies from mothers' lullabies to the newscaster's words, the lies in the heart, in the book, in the street, to understand, my love, that wonderful happiness, to understand what is gone and what is to come.