En.Citatepedia^®.ro

Last Will And Testament

Comrades, if I don't live to see the day
-- I mean,if I die before freedom comes --
take me away
and bury me in a village cemetery in Anatolia.

The worker Osman whom Hassan Bey ordered shot
can lie on one side of me, and on the other side
the martyr Aysha, who gave birth in the rye
and died inside of forty days.

Tractors and songs can pass below the cemetery --
in the dawn light, new people, the smell of burnt gasoline,
fields held in common, water in canals,
no drought or fear of the police.

Of course, we won't hear those songs:
the dead lie stretched out underground
and rot like black branches,
deaf, dumb, and blind under the earth.

But, I sang those songs
before they were written,
I smelled the burnt gasoline
before the blueprints for the tractors were drawn.

As for my neighbors,
the worker Osman and the martyr Aysha,
they felt the great longing while alive,
maybe without even knowing it.

Comrades, if I die before that day, I mean
-- and it's looking more and more likely --
bury me in a village cemetery in Anatolia,
and if there's one handy,
a plane tree could stand at my head,
I wouldn't need a stone or anything.

Moscow, Barviha Hospital

Trans. by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk (1993)

poem by Nazim Hikmet
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Some Advice To Those Who Will Serve Time In Prison

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 you do ten or fifteen years
apart from the time you have left,
you won't say,
"Better I had swung from the end of a rope
like a flag" --
You'll put your foot down and live.
It may not be a pleasure exactly,
but it's your solemn duty
to live one more day
to spite the enemy.
Part of you may live alone inside,
like a tone at the bottom of a well.
But the other part
must be so caught up
in the flurry of the world
that you shiver there inside
when outside, at forty days' distance, a leaf moves.
To wait for letters inside,
to sing sad songs,
or to lie awake all night staring at the ceiling
is sweet but dangerous.
Look at your face from shave to shave,
forget your age,
watch out for lice
and for spring nights,
and always remember
to eat every last piece of bread--
also, don't forget to laugh heartily.
And who knows,
the woman you love may stop loving you.
Don't say it's no big thing:
it's like the snapping of a green branch
to the man inside.
To think of roses and gardens inside is bad,
to think of seas and mountains is good.
Read and write without rest,
and I also advise weaving
and making mirrors.
I mean, it's not that you can't pass
ten or fifteen years inside
and more --
you can,
as long as the jewel
on the left side of your chest doesn't lose it's luster!

May 1949

Trans. by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk (1993)

poem by Nazim Hikmet
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It's This Way

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

My eyes can't get enough of the trees--
they're so hopeful, so green.

A sunny road runs through the mulberries,
I'm at the window of the prison infirmary.

I can't smell the medicines--
carnations must be blooming nearby.

It's this way:
being captured is beside the point,
the point is not to surrender.


Trans. by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk (1993)

poem by Nazim Hikmet
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About My Poetry

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.
A pot of honey
red as fire!

My honey is my everything.
I guard
my riches and my real-estate
-- my honey pot, I mean --
from pests of every species,
Brother, just wait...
As long as I've got
honey in my pot,
bees will come to it
from Timbuktu...

Trans. by Mutlu Konuk and Randy Blasing (1993)

poem by Nazim Hikmet
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Letters From A Man In Solitary

1
I carved your name on my watchband
with my fingernail.
Where I am, you know,
I don't have a pearl-handled jackknife
(they won't give me anything sharp)
or a plane tree with its head in the clouds.
Trees may grow in the yard,
but I'm not allowed
to see the sky overhead...
How many others are in this place?
I don't know.
I'm alone far from them,
they're all together far from me.
To talk anyone besides myself
is forbidden.
So I talk to myself.
But I find my conversation so boring,
my dear wife, that I sing songs.
And what do you know,
that awful, always off-key voice of mine
touches me so
that my heart breaks.
And just like the barefoot orphan
lost in the snow
in those old sad stories, my heart
-- with moist blue eyes
and a little red runny rose --
wants to snuggle up in your arms.
It doesn't make me blush
that right now
I'm this weak,
this selfish,
this human simply.
No doubt my state can be explained
physiologically, psychologically, etc.
Or maybe it's
this barred window,
this earthen jug,
these four walls,
which for months have kept me from hearing
another human voice.

It's five o'clock, my dear.
Outside,
with its dryness,
eerie whispers,
mud roof,
and lame, skinny horse
standing motionless in infinity
-- I mean, it's enough to drive the man inside crazy with grief --
outside, with all its machinery and all its art,
a plains night comes down red on treeless space.

Again today, night will fall in no time.
A light will circle the lame, skinny horse.
And the treeless space, in this hopeless landscape
stretched out before me like the body of a hard man,
will suddenly be filled with stars.
We'll reach the inevitable end once more,
which is to say the stage is set
again today for an elaborate nostalgia.
Me,
the man inside,
once more I'll exhibit my customary talent,
and singing an old-fashioned lament
in the reedy voice of my childhood,
once more, by God, it will crush my unhappy heart
to hear you inside my head,
so far
away, as if I were watching you
in a smoky, broken mirror...

2
It's spring outside, my dear wife, spring.
Outside on the plain, suddenly the smell
of fresh earth, birds singing, etc.
It's spring, my dear wife,
the plain outside sparkles...
And inside the bed comes alive with bugs,
the water jug no longer freezes,
and in the morning sun floods the concrete...
The sun--
every day till noon now
it comes and goes
from me, flashing off
and on...
And as the day turns to afternoon, shadows climb the walls,
the glass of the barred window catches fire,
and it's night outside,
a cloudless spring night...
And inside this is spring's darkest hour.
In short, the demon called freedom,
with its glittering scales and fiery eyes,
possesses the man inside
especially in spring...
I know this from experience, my dear wife,
from experience...

3
Sunday today.
Today they took me out in the sun for the first time.
And I just stood there, struck for the first time in my life
by how far away the sky is,
how blue
and how wide.
Then I respectfully sat down on the earth.
I leaned back against the wall.
For a moment no trap to fall into,
no struggle, no freedom, no wife.
Only earth, sun, and me...
I am happy.

Trans. by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk (1993)

poem by Nazim Hikmet
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The Cemetery of Hearts

It was a Cemetery of Hearts
laid out in neat rectangular squares
tombstone engravings of individual stories;
of loves lost and betrayed,
tear-ravaged love trysts.
love cuts, severed
or grief-laden,
all buried in Innocent's Ground
from whence they came.

I peered at the writing on first tombstone and then some others:

'He led me on and then made love to my mother
all this to me unknown.' one said

'I died in childbirth alone after having been exiled
from my home to a nunnery.'

'She plotted against me with my best friend.'

'She told me the baby was mine.'

'I died of grief in a sex war and of an affection-less marriage.'

My love and I were shot lying together.'

One said:
'Dead hearts murdered by rage or fear are the worst;
these hearts die gnarled and alone.'

The caretaker addressed me:
'What are you doing here? ' he said.

'I came to bury my heart with the rest of them.' I said.

'Really he said. Let me have a look.
This heart, ' he said is not really dead.

'I can't bury a heart that is yet alive.
that would be murder and wrong;
away with you.
You are premature. Go. Take this heart
and feed it, make it live again.'

I was shocked. To me this rejection was
yet another heart-ache to endure.

'My heart is not dead enough? ' I said.

'That's right, ' he said, yours is merely slightly used
and a little bruised but not dead.'
'
This cemetery is Innocent Ground,
a healing place for deceased hearts,
not ones merely tired and bruised.'

'Go back out there, take some courage from this dream.
The sores on your heart will heal
and be stronger then
for someone else you'll meet.

'You are stronger than you think.
We are really short of space here
we take only the really bad heart cases.'

'Go he said
dive right back in.'

He was right.
'And, ' he said
'Never underestimate the human heart;
it is the human brain that most times
that's wrong and prematurely deceased.'

poem by Lonnie Hicks
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On Living

I

Living is no laughing matter:
you must live with great seriousness
like a squirrel, for example--
I mean without looking for something beyond and above living,
I mean living must be your whole occupation.
Living is no laughing matter:
you must take it seriously,
so much so and to such a degree
that, for example, your hands tied behind your back,
your back to the wall,
or else in a laboratory
in your white coat and safety glasses,
you can die for people--
even for people whose faces you've never seen,
even though you know living
is the most real, the most beautiful thing.
I mean, you must take living so seriously
that even at seventy, for example, you'll plant olive trees--
and not for your children, either,
but because although you fear death you don't believe it,
because living, I mean, weighs heavier.

II

Let's say you're seriously ill, need surgery--
which is to say we might not get
from the white table.
Even though it's impossible not to feel sad
about going a little too soon,
we'll still laugh at the jokes being told,
we'll look out the window to see it's raining,
or still wait anxiously
for the latest newscast ...
Let's say we're at the front--
for something worth fighting for, say.
There, in the first offensive, on that very day,
we might fall on our face, dead.
We'll know this with a curious anger,
but we'll still worry ourselves to death
about the outcome of the war, which could last years.
Let's say we're in prison
and close to fifty,
and we have eighteen more years, say,
before the iron doors will open.
We'll still live with the outside,
with its people and animals, struggle and wind--
I mean with the outside beyond the walls.
I mean, however and wherever we are,
we must live as if we will never die.

III

This earth will grow cold,
a star among stars
and one of the smallest,
a gilded mote on blue velvet--
I mean this, our great earth.
This earth will grow cold one day,
not like a block of ice
or a dead cloud even
but like an empty walnut it will roll along
in pitch-black space ...
You must grieve for this right now
--you have to feel this sorrow now--
for the world must be loved this much
if you're going to say "I lived" ...

Trans. by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk (1993)

poem by Nazim Hikmet
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The Strangest Creature On Earth

You're like a scorpion, my brother,
you live in cowardly darkness
like a scorpion.
You're like a sparrow, my brother,
always in a sparrow's flutter.
You're like a clam, my brother,
closed like a clam, content,
And you're frightening, my brother,
like the mouth of an extinct volcano.

Not one,
not five--
unfortunately, you number millions.
You're like a sheep, my brother:
when the cloaked drover raises his stick,
you quickly join the flock
and run, almost proudly, to the slaughterhouse.
I mean you're strangest creature on earth--
even stranger than the fish
that couldn't see the ocean for the water.
And the oppression in this world
is thanks to you.
And if we're hungry, tired, covered with blood,
and still being crushed like grapes for our wine,
the fault is yours--
I can hardly bring myself to say it,
but most of the fault, my dear brother, is yours.

Trans. by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk (1993)

poem by Nazim Hikmet
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Hymn To Life

The hair falling on your forehead
suddenly lifted.
Suddenly something stirred on the ground.
The trees are whispering
in the dark.
Your bare arms will be cold.

Far off
where we can't see,
the moon must be rising.
It hasn't reached us yet,
slipping through the leaves
to light up your shoulder.
But I know
a wind comes up with the moon.
The trees are whispering.
Your bare arms will be cold.

From above,
from the branches lost in the dark,
something dropped at your feet.
You moved closer to me.
Under my hand your bare flesh is like the fuzzy skin of a fruit.
Neither a song of the heart nor "common sense"--
before the trees, birds, and insects,
my hand on my wife's flesh
is thinking.
Tonight my hand
can't read or write.
Neither loving nor unloving...
It's the tongue of a leopard at a spring,
a grape leaf,
a wolf's paw.
To move, breathe, eat, drink.
My hand is like a seed
splitting open underground.
Neither a song of the heart nor "common sense,"
neither loving nor unloving.
My hand thinking on my wife's flesh
is the hand of the first man.
Like a root that finds water underground,
it says to me:
"To eat, drink, cold, hot, struggle, smell, color--
not to live in order to die
but to die to live..."

And now
as red female hair blows across my face,
as something stirs on the ground,
as the trees whisper in the dark,
and as the moon rises far off
where we can't see,
my hand on my wife's flesh
before the trees, birds, and insects,
I want the right of life,
of the leopard at the spring, of the seed splitting open--
I want the right of the first man.

Trans. by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk (1993)

poem by Nazim Hikmet
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Autobiography

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
at nineteen as a student at Moscow Communist University
at forty-nine I was back in Moscow as the Tcheka Party's guest
and I've been a poet since I was fourteen
some people know all about plants some about fish
I know separation
some people know the names of the stars by heart
I recite absences
I've slept in prisons and in grand hotels
I've known hunger even a hunger strike and there's almost no food
I haven't tasted
at thirty they wanted to hang me
at forty-eight to give me the Peace Prize
which they did
at thirty-six I covered four square meters of concrete in half a year
at fifty-nine I flew from Prague to Havana in eighteen hours
I never saw Lenin I stood watch at his coffin in '24
in '61 the tomb I visit is his books
they tried to tear me away from my party
it didn't work
nor was I crushed under the falling idols
in '51 I sailed with a young friend into the teeth of death
in '52 I spent four months flat on my back with a broken heart
waiting to die
I was jealous of the women I loved
I didn't envy Charlie Chaplin one bit
I deceived my women
I never talked my friends' backs
I drank but not every day
I earned my bread money honestly what happiness
out of embarrassment for others I lied
I lied so as not to hurt someone else
but I also lied for no reason at all
I've ridden in trains planes and cars
most people don't get the chance
I went to opera
most people haven't even heard of the opera
and since '21 I haven't gone to the places most people visit
mosques churches temples synagogues sorcerers
but I've had my coffee grounds read
my writings are published in thirty or forty languages
in my Turkey in my Turkish they're banned
cancer hasn't caught up with me yet
and nothing says it will
I'll never be a prime minister or anything like that
and I wouldn't want such a life
nor did I go to war
or burrow in bomb shelters in the bottom of the night
and I never had to take to the road under diving planes
but I fell in love at almost sixty
in short comrades
even if today in Berlin I'm croaking of grief
I can say I've lived like a human being
and who knows
how much longer I'll live
what else will happen to me

This autobiography was written
in east Berlin on 11 September 1961

Trans. by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk (1993)

poem by Nazim Hikmet
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Cemetery Drive

cemetery drive,
covered in mist,
driving down the road,
so cold,
the crypts and tombstones cast dark shadow,
the bats and the wind,
grimly howl,
cemetery drive,
a place of shadow,
cemetery drive,
tall dead trees,
comfort the dead,
black roses grow along the road,
they fight the cold,
and give the living hope,
the living hope their hearts never stop,
and they'll never have to call cemetery drive home,
and tend to the shadows and black roses

poem by Catie Belle Stark
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Angina Pectoris

If half my heart is here, doctor,
the other half is in China
with the army flowing
toward the Yellow River.
And, every morning, doctor,
every morning at sunrise my heart
is shot in Greece.
And every night,c doctor,
when the prisoners are asleep and the infirmary is deserted,
my heart stops at a run-down old house
in Istanbul.
And then after ten years
all i have to offer my poor people
is this apple in my hand, doctor,
one read apple:
my heart.
And that, doctor, that is the reason
for this angina pectoris--
not nicotine, prison, or arteriosclerosis.
I look at the night through the bars,
and despite the weight on my chest
my heart still beats with the most distant stars.

Trans. by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk (1993)

poem by Nazim Hikmet
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Songs of Praise the Angels Sang

Songs of praise the angels sang,
Heav’n with alleluias rang,
When creation was begun,
When God spoke and it was done.

Songs of praise awoke the morn
When the Prince of Peace was born;
Songs of praise arose when He
Captive led Captivity.

Heav’n and earth must pass away!
Songs of praise shall crown that day!
God will make new heav’ns and earth;
Songs of praise shall hail their birth.

And can man alone be dumb,
Till that glorious kingdom come?
No: the church delights to raise
Psalms, and hymns, and songs of praise.

Saints below, with heart and voice,
Still in songs of praise rejoice,
Learning here, by faith and love,
Songs of praise to sing above.

Borne upon their latest breath,
Songs of praise shall conquer death;
Then amidst eternal joy,
Songs of praise their powers employ.

Hymns of glory, songs of praise,
Father, unto Thee we raise;
Jesus, glory unto Thee,
With the Spirit, ever be.

poem by James Montgomery
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Letter To My Wife

11-11-1933
Bursa Prison
My one and only!
Your last letter says:
"My head is throbbing,
my heart is stunned!"
You say:
"If they hang you,
if I lose you,
I'll die!"
You'll live, my dear--
my memory will vanish like black smoke in the wind.
Of course you'll live, red-haired lady of my heart:
in the twentieth century
grief lasts
at most a year.

Death--
a body swinging from a rope.
My heart
can't accept such a death.
But
you can bet
if some poor gypsy's hairy black
spidery hand
slips a noose
around my neck,
they'll look in vain for fear
in Nazim's
blue eyes!
In the twilight of my last morning
I
will see my friends and you,
and I'll go
to my grave
regretting nothing but an unfinished song...
My wife!
Good-hearted,
golden,
eyes sweeter than honey--my bee!
Why did I write you
they want to hang me?
The trial has hardly begun,
and they don't just pluck a man's head
like a turnip.
Look, forget all this.
If you have any money,
buy me some flannel underwear:
my sciatica is acting up again.
And don't forget,
a prisoner's wife
must always think good thoughts.

Trans. by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk (1993)

poem by Nazim Hikmet
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Lilydale

[ music: robert buck/lyric: natalie merchant ]
Come as we go far away
From the noise of the street
Walk a path so narrow
To a place where we feel at ease
Some think it is haunting
To be drawn to the cemetery ground
As we
Theres a stillness here
Thankful found
Childs pose angelic
A stone lamb at her feet
Part the matted overgrowth
To read the carven elegy
Some think it so haunting
To be drawn to the cemetery ground
As we
Theres a stillness here
Thankful found
Born in new albion
Of rice family elite
Wed to myron bilowe
Thrice with sons
Blessed was she
Some think it so haunting
To be drawn to the cemetery ground
As we
Gods acre is a fenced in
Hollow ground
Here soon to rise up
Amelia tender and sweet
Her last words spoke
All is well
All is peace
Some think it so haunting
To be drawn to the cemetery ground
As we
Gods acre is a fenced in
Hollow ground

song performed by by 10000 Maniacs
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Stranger

I met him on the way last sunday
He said that he is a Postmaster
I said how glad to meet him
and I gave him some letters to post.
I met him again, yes the same person on monday.
He said that he knows my father and he too a blacksmith.
Then I gave him a knife to sharpen.
I met him at the cemetery gravel road on Tuesday.
Yes, the same gentleman.
He said that he is a Pawnbroker, he knows my mother well
and he lives behind the cemetery.
I gave him my wedding ring and begged for money.
He took it and ran away.
One day when I was just passing the graveyard I saw his tomb with a photograph.
and this was written.
'Once a post master
and a blacksmith
killed a pawnbroker
died as a gambler'

poem by Nimal Dunuhinga
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A Song

COME, I will make the continent indissoluble;
I will make the most splendid race the sun ever yet shone upon;
I will make divine magnetic lands,
With the love of comrades,
With the life-long love of comrades.

I will plant companionship thick as trees along all the rivers of
America, and along the shores of the great lakes, and all over
the prairies;
I will make inseparable cities, with their arms about each other's
necks;
By the love of comrades,
By the manly love of comrades.

For you these, from me, O Democracy, to serve you, ma femme! 10
For you! for you, I am trilling these songs,
In the love of comrades,
In the high-towering love of comrades.

poem by Walt Whitman
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Gasoline Alley Bred

Woman, get your head out of curlers.
Time get your butt out of bed.
Get down your hats and baggage, my child.
Going back home,
going back to the homestead.
I'm a-gonna heat me some water,
and put a shine upon my shoes.
Telephone my ma,
Keep the room above Joe's
'Cause we're coming back,
coming back to the homestead.
Everything is packed,
getting back to the homestead.
This time, this time we'll stay.
I know that we could have made it;
we had ideas in our heads.
And I wish somehow
we could have saved it
but we're Gasoline Alley bred.
Yet the years haven't really been wasted,
and I know it in my head.
We did good for the life that we've tasted
'cause we're Gasoline Alley, Gasoline Alley bred
Woman, you can really believe it,
I did everything a man could do.
Breaking my back just to make us a dime.
That won't mean a damn
when no one wants to know you.
Woman, I know how you're feeling.
I've seen the hurt upon your face.
How many time do you think that I've cried?
Knowing every day that your heart was getting broken,
holdin' back your pride til you were nearly chokin'
Oh let's get away.
chorus
Gasoline Alley, Gasoline Alley Bred
Gasoline Alley, Gasoline Alley Bred
Gasoline Alley, Gasoline Alley Bred
Gasoline Alley, Gasoline Alley Bred

song performed by by Hollies
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Cemetery In My Mind

Locked in the mall in a state of fright
Looking for salvation in a car headlight
But you cant have what you cant buy
Tomorrow is better than yesterday,
Tomorrow is better than today,
Tomorrow is better than yesterday they say
Cemetery in my mind
Cemetery in my mind
This must be my time
Wake work drink sleep retire
Tide comes up way too high
You can fall but can you rise
Cemetery in my mind,
You can fall but can you rise
Theres no pulse no sign of life,
Cemetery in my mind.

song performed by by Midnight Oil
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Mysterious Mahanadi Vavroovahana Patra

Mother Mahanadi is beautiful;
All creatures on the river are delightful.
Flows from time immemorial on Earth;
Birds fly on the river with mirth.

On the river bank my village looks beautiful;
People of Brah manakhanda are delightful.
My village brothers are innocent;
In them plays waves of merriment.

I have played on my sweet loving river;
Penned many poems with pleasure.
Mother’s affection attracts me gaily;
Derive peace affectionatinely.

My mother looks beautiful;
All people are delightful.
All companions are gleeful;
All creatures are peaceful.

Mother’s blessings showers on all villages daily;
All people enchant gaily.
The cosy sandy bed is peaceful;
All comrades are delightful;

All companions sing songs gaily;
All comrades pray god gaudily.
The beauty of the river is ever lasting;
People on the river are enchanting.

poem by Vavroovahana Patra
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Another Kind Of Epitaph

The time I died first, there were days upon days
while you cried, remembering my unique ways.
I rose up and up high above the cemetery wall
while then I could fly and everything beneath looked small,

but back to mother earth I had to go, where I felt the new rain
while very slow, worms on me started to gnaw without any pain.
When my next funeral came, you graciously wanted to put me to sleep
you did not want the general type of burial where they would bury me deep

but to the fire you wanted me to go, to experience the flames of hell
and over the sea, the veldt my ashes you did blow and with tears wished me well.

poem by Gert Strydom
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