A corner of mine: If I do not burn -Nếu tôi không cháy lên

If I do not burn

Nếu tôi không cháy lên,

If I do not burn

If you do not burn

If we do not burn

How will darkness come to light?

(Nazim Hikmet, “Like Kerem”)

Nếu tôi không cháy lên,

Nếu anh không cháy lên,

Nếu chúng ta không cháy lên,

Thì làm sao...

Bóng tối.

Có thể trở thành...ánh sáng!

(Nadim Hikmet)

BECAUSE OF YOULOVING YOUFALLING LEAVESFalling LeavesI've read about falling leaves in fifty thousandpoems novels and so onwatched leaves falling in fifty thousand moviesseen leaves fall fifty thousand timesfall drift and rotfelt their dead shush shush fifty thousand timesunderfoot in my hands on my fingertipsbut I'm still touched by falling leavesespecially those falling on boulevardsespecially chestnut leavesand if kids are aroundif it's sunnyand I've got good news for friendshipespecially if my heart doesn't acheand I believe my love loves meespecially if it's a day I feel good about peopleI'm touched by falling leavesespecially those falling on boulevardsespecially chestnut leaves6 September 1961LeipzigDON QUIXOTEThe knight of immortal youthat the age of fifty found his mind in his heartand on July morning went out to capturethe right, the beautiful, the just.Facing him a world of silly and arrogant giants,he on his sad but brave Rocinante.I know what it means to be longing for something,but if your heart weighs only a pound and sixteen ounces,there's no sense, my Don, in fighting these senseless windmills.But you are right, of course, Dulcinea is your woman,the most beautiful in the world;I'm sure you'll shout this factat the face of street-traders;but they'll pull you down from your horseand beat you up.But you, the unbeatable knight of our curse,will continue to glow behind the heavy iron visorand Dulcinea will become even more beautiful.Translated by Taner BaybarsHIROSHIMA CHILDI come and stand at every doorBut none can hear my silent treadI knock and yet remain unseenFor I am dead for I am deadI'm only seven though I diedIn Hiroshima long agoI'm seven now as I was thenWhen children die they do not growMy hair was scorched by swirling flameMy eyes grew dim my eyes grew blindDeath came and turned my bones to dustAnd that was scattered by the windI need no fruit I need no riceI need no sweets nor even breadI ask for nothing for myselfFor I am dead for I am deadAll that I need is that for peaceYou fight today you fight todaySo that the children of this worldCan live and grow and laugh and playTHE PICTURE OF HAPPINESSThe Picture of Happiness is a poem of great Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet. He asks with his this poem if Abidin Dino can make the picture of happiness. Abidin Dino, who is a wonderful painter, makes it and answer with a poem too. By the way great Turkish composer Zülfü Livaneli composes it.Can you make the picture of happiness, Abidin?But not in an easy way.Not a picture of an angel-faced momy,breastfeeding her rose-cheeked baby,Nor apples on a white cover,Nor goldfish, swimming around betweenwater bubbles in an aquarium,Can you make a picture of happiness, Abidin?Can you do a picture of Cuba in mid-1961's summer?Can you do a picture saying "Thanks god, luckily I've seen today,......I never mind even I die!"?Nazim Hikmet.LETTERS FROM A MAN IN SOLITARY 1I carved your name on my watchbandwith 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 allowedto 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 myselfis 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 minetouches me sothat my heart breaks.And just like the barefoot orphanlost in the snowin those old sad stories, my heart- with moist blue eyesand a little red runny rose -wants to snuggle up in your arms.It doesn't make me blushthat right nowI'm this weak,this selfish,this human simply.No doubt my state can be explainedphysiologically, psychologically, etc.Or maybe it'sthis barred window,this earthen jug,these four walls,which for months have kept me from hearinganother human voice.It's five o'clock, my dear.Outside,with its dryness,eerie whispers,mud roof,and lame, skinny horsestanding 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 landscapestretched 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 setagain today for an elaborate nostalgia.Me,the man inside,once more I'll exhibit my customary talent,and singing an old-fashioned lamentin the reedy voice of my childhood,once more, by God, it will crush my unhappy heartto hear you inside my head,so faraway, as if I were watching youin a smoky, broken mirror...2It's spring outside, my dear wife, spring.Outside on the plain, suddenly the smellof 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 nowit comes and goesfrom me, flashing offand 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 insideespecially in spring...I know this from experience, my dear wife,from experience...3Sunday 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 lifeby how far away the sky is,how blueand 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)I WANT TO DIE BEFORE YOU.I want to die before you.Do you think that who passes laterwill find who's gone before?I don't think so.You'd better have me burned,and put me on the stove in your roomin a jar.The jar shall be made of glass,transparent, white glassso that you can see me inside...You see my sacrifice;I renounced from being part of the earth,I renounced from being a flowerto be able to stay with you.And I am becoming dustto live with you.Later, when you also die,you'll come to my jar.And we'll live there togetheryour ash in my ash,until a careless brideor an unfaithful grandsonthrows us out of there...But weuntil that timewill mixwith each otherso much thateven in the garbage we are thrown intoour grains will fall side by side.We will dive into the soil together.And one day, if a wild flowerfeeds from this piece of soil and blossomsabove its body,definitely there will be two flowers:one is you,One is me..THE MAILMANThe mailman.Whether at dawn or in the middle of the night, I've carried people news -of other people, the world, and my country,of trees, the birds and thebeasts-in the bag of my heart.I've been a poet,which is a kind of mailman. As a child, I wanted to be a mailman, not via poetry or anything but literally-a real mail carrier. In geography books and Jules Verne's novels my colored pencils drew a thousand different picturesof the same mailman-Nazim. Here, I'm driving a dogsledover ice, canned goods and mail packetsglint in the Arctic twilight: I'm crossing the Bering Strait. Or here, under the shadow of heavy clouds on the steppe, I'm handing out mail to soldiers and drinking kefir. Or here, on the humming asphalt of a big city, I bring only good newsand hope. Or I'm in the desert, under the stars, a little girl lies burning up with fever, and there's knock on the door at midnight: "Mailman!" The little girl opens her big blue eyes: her father will come home from prison tomorrow. I was the one who found that house in the snowstorm and gave the neighbor girl the telegram. As a child, I wanted to be a mailman. But it's a difficult art in my Turkey. In that beautiful countrya mailman bears all manner of pain in telegramsand line on line of grief in letters. As a child, I wanted to be a mailman. I got my wish in Hungary at fifty. Spring is in my bag, letters full of the Danube's shimmer,the twitter of birds, and the smell of fresh grass-letters from the children of Budapestto children in Moscow. Heaven is in my bag... One envelope writes: "Memet, Nazim Hikmet's son, Turkey." Back in Moscow I'll deliver the letters to their addresses one by one. Only Memet's letter I can't deliver or even send. Nazim's son, highwaymen block the roads-your letter can't get through. May 1954

THINKING OF YOU

Thinking of you is pretty, hopeful,

It is like listening to the most beautiful song

From the most beautiful voice on earth...

But hope is not enough for me any more,

I don't want to listen to songs any more,

I want to sing.

THE FACES OF OUR WOMEN

Mary didn't give birth to God.

Mary isn't the mother of God.

Mary is one mother among many mothers.

Mary gave birth to a son,

a son among many sons.

That's why Mary is so beautiful in all the pictures of her.

That's why Mary's son is so close to us, like our own sons.

The faces of our women are the book of our pains.

Our pains, our faults and the blood we shed

carve scars on the faces of our women like plows.

And our joys are reflected in the eyes of women

like the dawns glowing on the lakes.

Our imaginations are on the faces of women we love.

Whether we see them or not, they are before us,

closest to our realities and furthest.

THE MINIATURE WOMAN

The Blue-Eyed Giant, the Miniature Woman

and the Honeysuckle

He was a blue-eyed giant,

He loved a miniature woman.

The woman's dream was of a miniature house

with a garden where honeysuckle grows

in a riot of colours

that sort of house.

The giant loved like a giant,

and his hands were used to such big things

that the giant could not

make the building,

could not knock on the door

of the garden where the honeysuckle grows

in a riot of colours

at that house.

He was a blue-eyed giant,

he loved a miniature woman,

a mini miniature woman.

The woman was hungry for comfort

and tired of the giant's long strides.

And bye bye off she went to the embraces of a rich dwarf with a garden where the honeysuckle grows

in a riot of colours

that sort of house.

Now the blue-eyed giant realizes,

a giant isn't even a graveyard for love:

in the garden where the honeysuckle grows

in a riot of colours

that sort of house...

YOU

You are my enslavement and my freedom

You are my flesh burning like a raw summer night

You are my country

You are the green silks in hazel eyes

You are big, beautiful and triumphant

And you are my sorrow that isn't felt

the more I feel it.

YOU ARE MY DRUNKENNESS

You are my drunkenness...

I did not sober up, as if I can do that;

I don't want to anyway.

I have a headache, my knees are full of scars

I am in mud all around

I struggle to walk towards your hesitant light.

FIVE LINES

To overcome lies in the heart, in the streets, in the books

from the lullabies of the mothers

to the news report that the speaker reads,

understanding, my love, what a great joy it is,

to understand what is gone and what is on the way.

I LOVE YOU

I love you

like dipping bread into salt and eating

Like waking up at night with high fever

and drinking water, with the tap in my mouth

Like unwrapping the heavy box from the postman

with no clue what it is

fluttering, happy, doubtful

I love you

like flying over the sea in a plane for the first time

Like something moves inside me

when it gets dark softly in Istanbul

I love you

Like thanking God that we live.

I THINK OF YOU...

I think of you

and I feel the scent of my mother

my mother, the most beautiful of all.

You are on the carousel of the festival inside me

you hover around, your skirt and your hair flying

Mere seconds between finding your beautiful face and losing it.

What is the reason,

why do I remember you like a wound on my heart

what is the reason that I hear your voice when you are so far

and I can't help getting up with excitement?

I kneel down and look at your hands

I want to touch your hands

but I can't

you are behind a glass.

Sweetheart, I am a bewildered spectator of the drama

that I am playing in my twilight.