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"9-10 P. M. POEMS WRITTEN FOR PIRAYE"
(SELECTIONS)
How lovely it is to remember you :
in the midst of the news of death and victory,
in prison
and over forty years of age...
How lovely it is to remember you :
your hand forgotten on a blue cloth
and in your hair
the grave softness of my beloved Istanbul earth...
It is like a second human in me
the happiness of loving you...
The smell of geranium leaf on the fingertips,
a sunny ease
and the call of flesh :
parted by quite red lines
a warm
deep darkness...
How lovely it is to remember you,
to write about you,
to lie back in prison and think of you :
that day, that place, the words you said,
not the words themselves
but the way you said them...
How lovely it is to remember you.
I should carve something for you out of wood :
a drawer
a ring,
and I should weave three meters of fine silk.
And jumping right up
from my place
grabbing the iron bars at my window,
to the milk-white blueness of freedom
I should shout out the poems I wrote for you.
How lovely it is to remember you :
in the midst of the news of death and victory,
in prison
and over forty years of age...
tr. by Fuat Engin
20 September 1945
At this late hour
in this autumn night
I am full of your words;
eternal as time and matter,
naked as an eye,
heavy as a hand
and gleaming as stars
your words.
Your words came to me,
they were of your heart, of your head, of your flesh.
Your words brought you,
they were : mother,
they were : woman
and they were comrade...
They were sad, painful, joyful, hopeful, heroic,
your words were human...
tr. by Fuat Engin
21 September 1945
Our son is sick,
his father is in prison,
your heavy head is in your tired hands,
we are as the world is...
Men carry men to better days,
our son will get cured,
his father will get out of prison,
there will be a smile in your golden eyes,
we are as the world is...
tr. by Fuat Engin
22 September 1945
I read a book :
you are in it,
I listen to a song :
you in it.
I sit down to eat my bread :
you sit facing me,
I work
you facing me.
You who are everywhere my "ever present"
we cannot talk together
we cannot hear each other's voice :
you are my eight years widow.
tr. by Fuat Engin
23 September 1945
What is she doing now, :
right now, this instant?
Is she in the house or outside?
Is she working, lying down, or standing up?
Maybe she's just raised her arm,
- hey,
how this suddenly bares her thick white wrist!.. -
What is she doing now,
right now, this instant?
Maybe she's petting
a kitten on her lap.
Or maybe she is walking, about to take a step,
- those beloved feet that take her straight to me
on my dark days!.. -
And what's she thinking about -
me?
Or
- oh, I don't know -
why the beans refuse to cook?
Or else
why most people are this unhappy?
What is she doing now,
right now, this instant?
tr. by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk
24 September 1945
The most beautiful sea :
is the sea which is not reached yet.
The most beautiful child :
hasn't grown yet.
The most beautiful days of ours :
are those which we didn't live yet.
And the most beautiful words I want to tell you :
are the words which I did'nt tell yet...
tr. by Fuat Engin
26 September 1945
They've taken us prisoner,
they've locked us up :
me inside the walls,
you outside.
But that's nothing.
The worst
is when people - knowingly or not -
carry prison inside themselves...
Most people have been forced to do this,
honest, hard-working, good people
who deserve to be loved as much as I love you...
tr. by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk
2 October 1945
The wind blows on, the same cherry branch
doesn't bend in the same wind even once.
Birds chirp in the tree :
the wings want to fly.
The door is closed :
it wants to break open.
I want you :
life should be
beautiful like you,
friendly and loving...
I know the feast of poverty
still isn't over...
It will be yet...
tr. by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk
6 October 1945
Clouds pass, heavy with news.
The letter that didn't come crumples in my hand.
My heart is at the tips of my eyelashes,
blessing the earth that disappeares into the distance.
I want to call out : "P i r a y é,
P i r a y é !"
tr. by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk
8 October 1945
I've become impossible again
sleeples, irritible, perverse.
One day
I work
as if beating a wild beast, as if cursing all that's holy,
and the next day
I lie on my back from morning to night
a lazy song on my lips like an unlit cigarette.
And it drives me crazy,
the hatred
and pity I feel for myself...
I've become impossible again :
sleeples, irritible, perverse.
Again, as always, I am wrong.
I have no cause
and couldn't possibly.
What I am doing is shameful,
a disgrace.
But I can't help it
I'm jealous of you,
forgive me...
tr. by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk
13 November 1945
The poverty of Istanbul - they say - defies description,
hunger - they say - has ravaged the people,
TB - they say - is eveywhere.
Little girls this high - they say -
in burned-out buildings, movie theaters...
Dark news comes from my far-off city
of honest, hard-working, poor people -
the real Istanbul,
which is your home, my love,
and which I carry in the bag on my back
wherever I'm exiled, to whatever prison,
the city I hold in my heart like the loss of a child,
like your image in my eyes...
tr. by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk
The fourth day of December 1945
Take out of the box the dress you had on when our eyes met
the first time,
look your best,
look like spring trees.
Set in your hair
the carnation I'd sent you in a letter from prison,
raise your white, broad forehead wrinkled with kissable lines,
in such a day, not daunted and sorrowful,
why, on what pretext
in such a day as beautiful as a rebel-flag she should be, Nazim
Hikmet's woman...
tr. by Fuat Engin
5 December 1945
The keel has snapped,
the slaves are breaking their chains.
That's a northeaster blowing,
it'll smash the hull on the rocks.
This world, this pirate ship, will sink -
come hell or high water, it will sink.
And we will build a world as hopeful, free,
and open as your forehead, my Pirayé...
tr. by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk
6 December 1945
They are the enemies of hope, my love,
of flowing water,
of the fruitful tree,
of life growing and flourishing.
Because death has branded them on their forehead :
- rotting teeth, decaying flesh -
and soon they will be gone not to come back again.
And be sure, my love, be sure,
freedom will walk around swinging its arms,
freedom in its most glorious garment : worker's overalls
in this beautiful country of ours...
tr. by Fuat Engin
12 December 1945
The trees on the plain make one last effort to shine :
spangled gold
copper
bronze and wood...
The oxen's hooves sink softly into the moist earth.
And the mountains are plunged in fog :
lead-gray, soaking wet...
That's it -
fall must be finally over today.
Wild geese just shot by,
probably headed for Iznik Lake.
The air is cool
and smells like soot :
the smell of snow is in the air.
To be outside now,
to ride a horse at full gallop toward the mountains.
You'll say, "You don't know how to ride a horse,"
but don't laugh
or get jealous :
I've picked up a new habit in prison,
I love nature nearly as much
as I love you.
And both of you are far away...
tr. by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk
14 December 1945
Damn it, winter has come down hard...
You and my honest Istanbul, who knows how you are?
Do you have coal?
Could you buy wood?
Line the windows with newspaper.
Go to bed early.
Probably nothing's left in the house to sell.
To be cold and half hungry :
here, too, we're the majority
in the world, our country, and our city...
tr. by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk