Nazim Hikmet

as a child he never plucked the wings off flies
he didn't tie tin cans to cats' tails
or lock beetles in matchboxes
or stomp anthills
...

You waste the attention of your eyes,
the glittering labour of your hands,
and knead the dough enough for dozens of loaves
of which you'll taste not a morsel;
...

The hair falling on your forehead
suddenly lifted.
Suddenly something stirred on the ground.
The trees are whispering
...

1
I carved your name on my watchband
with my fingernail.
Where I am, you know,
...

it's 1962 March 28th
I'm sitting by the window on the Prague-Berlin train
night is falling
I never knew I liked
...

I

Living is no laughing matter:
you must live with great seriousness
...

I have no silver-saddled horse to ride,
no inheritance to live on,
neither riches no real-estate --
a pot of honey is all I own.
...

To overcome lies in the heart, in the streets, in the books
from the lullabies of the mothers
to the news report that the speaker reads,
...

11-11-1933
Bursa Prison
My one and only!
Your last letter says:
...

I stand in the advancing light,
my hands hungry, the world beautiful.

My eyes can't get enough of the trees--
...

If instead of being hanged by the neck
you're thrown inside
for not giving up hope
in the world, your country, your people,
...

If half my heart is here, doctor,
the other half is in China
with the army flowing
toward the Yellow River.
...

You are my drunkenness...
I did not sober up, as if I can do that;
I don't want to anyway.
...

Taut, thick fingers punch
the teeth of my typewriter.
Three words are down on paper
in capitals:
...

Our eyes
are limpid
drops of water.
In each drop exists
...

Sometimes, I, too, tell the ah's
of my heart one by one
like the blood-red beads
of a ruby rosary strung
...

The knight of immortal youth
at the age of fifty found his mind in his heart
and on July morning went out to capture
the right, the beautiful, the just.
...

I was born in 1902
I never once went back to my birthplace
I don't like to turn back
at three I served as a pasha's grandson in Aleppo
...

I come and stand at every door
But none can hear my silent tread
I knock and yet remain unseen
For I am dead for I am dead
...

You're like a scorpion, my brother,
you live in cowardly darkness
like a scorpion.
You're like a sparrow, my brother,
...