Nazim Hikmet
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
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
Gioconda And Si-Ya-U
to the memory of my friend SI-YA-U, whose head was cut off in Shanghai A CLAIM Renowned Leonardo’s World-famous “La Gioconda” Has disappeared. And in the space Vacated by the fugitive A copy has
Don Quixote
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. Facing him a world
Regarding Art
Sometimes, I, too, tell the ah’s Of my heart one by one Like the blood-red beads Of a ruby rosary strung on strands of golden hair! But my Poetry’s muse Takes to the air
Things I Didn't Know I Loved
it’s 1962 March 28th I’m sitting by the window on the Prague-Berlin train Night is falling I never knew I liked Night descending like a tired bird on a smoky wet plain I don’t
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
Our Eyes
Our eyes are limpid drops of water. In each drop exists a tiny sign of our genius Which has given life to cold iron. Our eyes are limpid drops of water Merged absolutely in
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
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
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
Optimistic Man
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 He grew up And all those things were
A Sad State Of Freedom
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; You are free to slave
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
A Spring Piece Left In The Middle
Taut, thick fingers punch The teeth of my typewriter. Three words are down on paper in capitals: SPRING SPRING SPRING… And me poet, proofreader, The man who’s forced to read Two thousand bad lines