Remembering you is good
in prison
amid the news
of victory and death
as my fortieth year passes…
Remembering you is good
your hand
forgotten upon a blue dress
your hair
with the grave softness
of the earth of my beloved Istanbul.
This joy of loving you
is like a second person inside me…
The smell of geranium leaves
on your fingertips
warm and comforting
The invitation of your flesh
a hot
intense darkness
scored by vivid red lines…
Remembering you is good
or writing about you
as I lie on my back
in prison
thinking of such and such a day
at such and such a place
of some words you said
not of the words so much
but of the world and you within them…
Remembering you is good
I must carve some things for you again
a jewel box
a ring
I must weave a length of thin silk
then jump up
and clutching the window bars
shout what I have written for you
to the innocent blue
of freedom.
Remembering you is good
in prison
amid the news
of victory and death
as my fortieth year passes…
1942
At this late hour
on this autumn night
I am filled with your words.
Eternal
like time like matter
Naked
like an eye
Heavy
like a hand
Words which sparkle
like stars.
Your words came to me
from your heart
your head
your body
Your words delivered you
mother
woman
comrade
Your words were sad
they were bitter
hopeful
heroic
Your words were human.
September 20, 1945
Our son is sick
his father in prison
your heavy head
fallen in your tired palms
the laughter drained from your golden eyes.
People
will surely carry people
on to sunnier days
our son will get well
his father out of prison
your golden eyes
will fill with laughter once more…
Our fate
is the world’s fate.
September 21, 1945
Reading books
you’re there inside me
Hearing songs
you’re inside me
Eating my bread
you’re sitting before me
Or at my work
you’re before me.
You’re my ‘silent partner’
everywhere.
Although we cannot speak
Although we cannot hear
each other’s voices.
You’re my widow of eight years.
September 22, 1945
What is she doing now
this second, this very second?
Is she at home, outside,
working, lying down, on her feet?
could she be raising her arm?
O my love!
how this movement bares
her strong white wrist!
What is she doing now
this second, this very second?
Perhaps she has a kitten on her lap,
she’s petting it.
Or, perhaps she’s walking, about to step.
O those feet I cherish,
those feet which bring her to me
on tip-toe when days are dark…
And what is she thinking about,
of me?
Or, who knows,
why the beans take so long to cook?
Or, even,
why the majority of men are so miserable?
What is she thinking now
this second, this very second?
September 23, 1945
The loveliest sea
is the sea not yet traveled
The loveliest child
is the child not yet born
Our loveliest days
are those we have not yet lived through.
And the loveliest word I would say to you
is the word that I have not yet said.
September 24, 1945
Squatting, I look at the earth
I look at the grasses
I look at the insects
I look at the deep blue flowers opening from stems.
I look at you, my love,
You are like the spring earth.
Stretched out on my back, I see the sky
I see the tree’s branches
I see the storks flying
I see you, my love,
You are like the spring sky.
Lighting a night fire, I touch the fire
I touch the water
I touch the cloth
I touch the silver
I touch you, my love
You are the fire lit beneath the stars.
Inside of people, I love people
I love action
I love thinking
I love my struggle
I love you, my love,
You are a person inside my struggle.
1945
9 PM
horns blare in the yard
soon they will close the cell doors.
This prison term
is longer than the others
nearly eight years now…
Living is a labor of hope, my love,
living is a serious business
like loving you…
September 25, 1945
They enslaved us
threw us in prison
me
inside the walls
you
outside the walls.
But that is nothing,
the true evil is that
knowingly
or unknowingly
a man carries the prison
inside himself…
Most of the men
fallen to this state
are honorable
hard-working
good men,
and deserve to be loved
as I love you.
September 26, 1945
Thinking of you
is a beautiful thing
a hopeful thing
a thing like hearing
the most beautiful song
from the world’s most beautiful voice…
But hope no longer is enough for me
I no longer want to hear the song—
I want to sing it…
September 30, 1945
Above the mountain
there is a cloud
swollen with sun above the mountain.
Another day
passed without you
with and without the world another day.
They will open soon
in bursts of red
nightflowers will open in bursts of red.
Soundless bold wings
carry our separation
that separation like an exile
from the homeland…
October 1, 1945
The wind flows by
no cherry branch moves
with the same wind twice.
Birds chatter in the trees:
wings poised for flight.
A closed door:
waiting to be thrown open.
I want you
I want life to be as lovely
and friendly and good as you.
I know this feast of misery
is not yet finished.
But it will be finished…
October 2, 1945
Both of us know, my love,
they taught us
the hunger, the shivering,
the withering exhaustion,
the separation from each other.
Still, we have not been forced to kill
nor tasted the moment of being killed.
Both of us know, my love,
we can teach them
to fight for our people
to love each day
a little stronger
a little more from our souls…
October 5, 1945
Clouds pass, heavy
and swollen with news,
Crushing in my fist
the letter that hasn’t come yet,
Tears in the corners of my eyes,
goodbyes said to the endless earth,
And I want to shout: Piraye!
Pi-ra-ye!
October 6, 1945
At night, the wind carries the cries of men
across the open seas
At night, there is danger still in straying
across the open seas.
This field, unplowed for six years,
still bears the tracks of tank treads
This winter, the snow will cover
these untouched tracks of tank treads.
Ah, my dearest, the antennas are lying again
so that the merchants of sweat can close
with 100% profits.
But those who have returned from Azrail’s feast
have returned with their decisions made…
October 7, 1945
I’ve become unbearable again
sleepless, petty, cross.
You can see
I’m working one day
like a blasphemous shrew
like a raging animal.
And then
I’m on my back the next day
from morning to evening
a lazy folksong in my mouth
like a cigarette that has gone out.
The hate
and the pity I feel for myself
hold me totally in their grasp.
I’ve become unbearable again
sleepless, petty, cross.
As always, I’m unfair.
Without any reason
or any possibility of one,
and even though it’s a vile humiliation
I can’t help it,
I’m jealous.
Forgive me…
October 8, 1945
Last night I had a dream:
You were sitting at my feet,
You raised your head, turned
Your enormous golden eyes to me,
And asked a question,
Your wet lips opened and closed,
But I didn’t hear your voice.
The hour struck as though somewhere
There was good news in the night.
Whispers of endlessness in the air,
My canary in its red cage
Singing the Song of Memo.
The small cracking sounds of seeds
Pushing and lifting the earth,
And the just and triumphant humming
Of some gathering comes to my ear.
Your wet lips still opened and closed,
But I didn’t hear your voice.
I awoke in a nervous uncertainty.
I had fallen asleep over my book, it seems,
But I am wondering now
Whether all those voices were not your voice?
October 9, 1945
Looking in your eyes
I am drunk with the smell of warm earth
lost in a wheat field among the stalks…
Your eyes
are like an eternal substance, changing endlessly
pits without bottom, with flashes of green…
whose secret is given up a little each day
but never completely surrendered.
October 10, 1945
When I leave the prison to meet my death
And when we turn for the last time
to look at the city,
We shall be able to say these words, my love:
‘Though you never made our hearts rejoice,
we worked hard as we could
thinking we could make you happy.
Roads to happiness lead on, as life goes on.
We are content, our hearts are satisfied
with the bread we earned;
Our eyes bear the afflictions
of separation from your light.
See, we have come
and now we are going.
May you be happy,
city of Aleppo…’
October 18, 1945
We are one half of an apple
the other half is this enormous world
We are one half of an apple
the other half is our people
You are one half of an apple
I am the other half
we are two…
October 27, 1945
The smell rises from the geraniums
The waves hum on the seas
Autumn is here with its full clouds
And intelligent earth…
My love, the year has reached its maturity.
It seems that we have known
Perhaps a thousand years’ worth of life,
But we are still wide-eyed children
Running hand in hand in the sun…
October 28, 1945
Forget the flowering almond trees.
Why think of that which cannot be regained?
Dry your wet hair in the sun,
Your hair with the smell of ripe fruit,
That shines, heavy and damp, with redness.
My love, my love,
the season is autumn…
November 5, 1945
From above the roofs
of my distant city,
passing the tip
of the Marmara sea,
flying over
the autumn earth
Came your voice—
moist and mature—
For three minutes.
Then, the telephone
was closed down
like pitch darkness…
November 8, 1945
The last southwinds have begun to blow
warm and humming
like blood pouring from a vein.
I listen to the weather:
it’s pulse is slowing down.
There is snow on Olympia’s peak.
On the Kirezli plateau
the bears with great charm and majesty
lie down on the chestnut leaves to sleep.
The poplars on the plain undress.
Silkworm eggs will be taken soon
to their winter shelter.
Autumn is about to end,
The earth to enter its pregnant sleep.
And we will pass again one more winter
with this great rage inside,
warming ourselves in the fire
of our sacred hope…
November 12, 1945
They say
it doesn’t allow description—
the misery of Istanbul.
They say
the people are crushed by hunger.
They say
tuberculosis lurks everywhere.
And the young girls, they say,
are taken in the ruins
and in theater loges.
This black news comes
from my distant city,
from the city of hard-working
honest people,
from the real Istanbul,
My love,
from the city which is your home,
which I carry on my back in a bag
wherever I am exiled
wherever I am in prison
Which I bear in my heart
like the grieving for a lost child
like your image
which I hold in my eyes…
November 13, 1945
Although you’ll find carnations still
in vases now and then,
seeds are being scattered in the fields
plowed up long ago for planting
and olives, stuffed with oil,
are being picked now.
On one side we’re moving into winter
on another the earth is being opened
for the seedlings of spring.
As for me
filled with longing
and heavy with impatience
for great travels,
I am lying in Bursa
like a ship at anchor…
November 20, 1945
Take out from your chest
the dress you wore
the first time I saw you
and dress up
like the spring trees.
Put in your hair the carnation
I am sending you from prison,
Lift your broad forehead
white and creased with those lines
that should be kissed,
And by no means look tired
or worried on such a day.
The wife of Nazim Hikmet must be beautiful
like the flag of a rebellion
on such a day!
December 4, 1945
A hole wore through the ship’s hull
the slaves cut to pieces their chains
the wind from the northeast blew
about to hurl the ship upon the rocks.
This world
this pirate ship
will sink.
Whatever happens
it will sink.
And we will create
a free, spacious, hopeful world
like your face
my Piraye…
December 5, 1945
They are the enemies of hope, my love,
the enemies of a life
that grows and develops
of a tree that bears fruit
of water that flows.
Because death is stamped on their foreheads—
their teeth rot
their flesh decays—
They’ll disappear
and never come back.
And surely, my love,
surely this lovely country of mine
will be a garden of brothers
without masters or slaves…
December 6, 1945
Enemy to Receb
the towel-maker in Bursa
Enemy to Hasan
the fitter in Karabük factory
Enemy to the woman Hatçe
the village peasant
Enemy to Süleyman
the worker
Enemy to me
Enemy to you
Enemy to thinking men.
My love, they are the enemy
of the country which houses them.
December 7, 1945
On the plain
trees burn in a final effort
spangles of gold
copper
brass and bronze.
Hooves of oxen
slowly, softly
two by two sink
in dampened earth.
And the mountains are soaked and gray
submerged in mist…
It’s finished.
Perhaps this day is all
that is left of autumn.
And now the wild geese wing past
heading for Iznik lake.
Something cool in the air
like the smell of soot in the air
the smell of snow in the air…
Now to be outside!
Now to charge a horse straight for the mountains!
‘But you don’t know how to ride,’ you’ll say.
Don’t laugh at me
and don’t be jealous
This new love of nature
I’ve acquired in prison
I love almost
but not as much
as I love you…
And both of you so far away…
December 12, 1945
Snow suddenly set in at night
morning began with crows
scattering from white branches.
Winter on the Bursa plain
past the eye’s reaching
recalling endlessness.
My love, the season
burst through to change
after continuous struggle,
And proud,
working hard beneath the snow
Life
still pushing on
and up…
December 13, 1945
Damn, the winter has come down hard.
Who knows what’s happened to you
and to my Istanbul.
Have you coal?
Can you get wood?
Stuff newspaper in the window cracks,
and go to bed early.
There’s nothing in the house to sell,
I know…
Even when we shiver
half hungry
half full
Even in this we are in the majority
in our country
in our city
in the world.
December 14, 1945
