Cyprus-Forum.com

[Bananiot]

Great news. Turkey has restored citizenship for Nazim Hikmet. Read more:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/ja ... zim-hikmet

[karma]

Great news. Turkey has restored citizenship for Nazim Hikmet. Read more:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/ja ... zim-hikmet

Great hypocrisy. Turkey should restore democracy first.
wht is the meaning of restoring a citizenship when you are not allowed even to criticize a single thing about it..sounds funny.. Nazim will NOT appreciate this

[Bananiot]

Agree, hopefully they will come around this too.

[BirKibrisli]

I hope they will also bring his remains back and bury him on a hill in Anatolia as he requested...

Here is one of my favourite poems of his:

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.

NAZIM HIKMET
[1948]

[BirKibrisli]

And here is the poem mentioned in the article in full....


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.



Nazim Hikmet, 27 April 1953
Moscow, Barviha Hospital

Trans. by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk (1993)

[Bananiot]

Birkibrisli, there is one that says "if I do not get burnt, if you do not get burnt, who will turn the sun" or something to this effect. Any idea which one it is?

[BirKibrisli]

Birkibrisli, there is one that says "if I do not get burnt, if you do not get burnt, who will turn the sun" or something to this effect. Any idea which one it is?

It rings a bell,Bananiot...
I will see if I can dig it up...

[insan]

Birkibrisli, there is one that says "if I do not get burnt, if you do not get burnt, who will turn the sun" or something to this effect. Any idea which one it is?

just the last part needs to be changed as "how will the darkness become clarity"


Nazim Hikmet


SEPTEMBER 30th 1945

Thinking of you is beautiful
and hopeful,
like listening to the best voice in the world
sing the loveliest song.
But hope is not enough for me:
I no longer want to listen,
I want to sing the song...


SEPTEMBER 24th 1945

The most beautiful sea:
hasn't been crossed yet.
The most beautiful child:
hasn't grown up yet.
Our most beautiful days:
we haven't seen yet.
And the most beautiful words I wanted to tell you
I haven't said yet...



TODAY IS SUNDAY

Today is Sunday.
Today, for the first time,
they took me out into the sun
and for the first time in my life
I looked at the sky
amazed that it was so far
and so blue
and so wide.
I stood without moving
and then respectfully sat on the black earth,
pressed my back against the wall.
Now, not even a thought of dying,
not a thought of freedom, of my wife.
The earth, the sun and me...
I am happy.

1938

N.H



In The Harbor
Emis - young, twenty-eight-
reached this Syrian harbor in a Tenian ship,
his plan to learn the incense trade.
But ill during the voyage,
he died as soon as he was put ashore.
His burial, the poorest possible, took place here.
A few hours before dying he whispered something
about 'home', about 'very old parents.'
But nobody he called home
in the great pan Hellenic world.
Better that way; because as it is,
though he lies buried in this harbor,
his parents will always have the hope he's still alive.

K.C

[iceman]

Birkibrisli, there is one that says "if I do not get burnt, if you do not get burnt, who will turn the sun" or something to this effect. Any idea which one it is?

Ben yanmasam,
Sen yanmasan,
Biz yanmasak,
Nasıl çıkar karanlıklar aydınlığa.


if i don't burn,
if you don't burn,
if we don't burn,
how will the darkness change into light??

It's a bit tricky to translate "Nasıl çıkar karanlıklar aydınlığa"

[zan]

Dedicated to the "RoC"....


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.

Nazim Hikmet - 1947
Trans. by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk (1993)