Tell Me About İstanbul

Nâzım Hikmet

Stop! Let the water of the coffee boil, Tell me about İstanbul, how was it? Tell me about Bosphorus, how was it? June is washed by the runaway rains with vibrations, Would that seven hills get dried by Such a hot sun like a mother’s care…

Tell me people laughed there, In trains, ferries, buses. I like it even if it’s a lie, say it. Always agony, always agony, always agony Had enough…

Stop! Let it stay, don’t turn the TV on Tell me about İstanbul, how was it? Tell me about the city of cities, how was it? While looking in my forbidden eyes from the hills of Beyoglu, Make compliments about bridges, Sarayburnu, minarets, and Haliç. Could you say a hello, secretly…

Tell me people laughed there, In trains, ferries, buses. I like it even if it’s a lie, say it. Always agony, always agony, always agony Had enough…

Stop! Leave it, don’t move stay like that, please Your scent is like İstanbul, and your eyes like İstanbul nights. Now come and hug, hug me the one with henna. Under the sky, just there together The dream of starting over by saying thanks to god Is like a river in the desert of your longing.

Tell me people laughed there, In trains, ferries, buses. I like it even if it’s a lie, say it. Always agony, always agony, always agony Had enough…

Posted before, but simply too good to pass over

Since I’ve Been In Jail

Nazim Hikmet

Since I've been in jail the world has turned around the sun ten times And if you ask the earth, it will say: "It's not worth mentioning, a microscopic time." And if you ask me, I will say: "It's ten years of my life." I had a pencil the year I came to jail. It wore out in a week from writing. And if you ask the pencil, it will say: "A whole life." And if you ask me, I will say: "It's nothing, a mere week." Osman who was jailed for murder completed a seven-year stretch and left since I've been in jail. He wandered around outside for a while, and then got jailed again for smuggling. He served a six-month term and left again, and yesterday a letter came saying he's married and a child will be born in the spring. Now they're ten years old the children who fell from their mothers' womb that year I came to jail, And the colts of that year who had long thin shaky legs have long since become docile broad-rumped mares. But the olive shoots are still shoots and they're still children. New squares have opened up in my distant city since I've been in jail. And our family is living in a house I've never seen on a street I don't know. The bread was pure white, like cotton, the year I came to jail. Later it was rationed out, And we here on the inside beat one another for a piece of black crust the size of a fist. Now it's free again, But brown and tasteless. The year I came to jail The Second One had just begun. The ovens in Dachau Camp were not yet lit, The atom bomb was not yet hurled upon Hiroshima. Time flowed like the blood of a child with his throat cut. Later that chapter was officially closed, Now American dollars are talking about a Third. But in spite of everything, the days have brightened since I've been in jail, And about half of them "put their heavy hands on the pavement and on the edge of darkness straightened up." Since I've been in jail the world has turned around the sun ten times. And again I repeat with the same passion what I wrote for them the year I came to jail: "They whose number is as great as ants on the earth fish in the water birds in the sky are fearful and brave ignorant and learned and they are children, And they who destroy and create it is only their adventure in these songs." And for the rest, for example, my lying here for ten years, it's nothing…

On Living

Nazim Hikmet

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 occupation. Living is no laughing matter: you must take it seriously, so much so and to such a degree   that, for example, your hands tied behind your back,                                            your back to the wall,   or else in a laboratory in your white coat and safety glasses, you can die for people—   even for people whose faces you've never seen,   even though you know living is the most real, the most beautiful thing. I mean, you must take living so seriously   that even at seventy, for example, you'll plant olive trees—   and not for your children, either,   but because although you fear death you don't believe it,   because living, I mean, weighs heavier.

II

Let's say we're seriously ill, need surgery— which is to say we might not get up from the white table. Even though it's impossible not to feel sad about going a little too soon, we'll still laugh at the jokes being told, we'll look out the window to see if it's raining, or still wait anxiously for the latest newscast. . . Let's say we're at the front— for something worth fighting for, say. There, in the first offensive, on that very day, we might fall on our face, dead. We'll know this with a curious anger,        but we'll still worry ourselves to death        about the outcome of the war, which could last years. Let's say we're in prison and close to fifty, and we have eighteen more years, say,                        before the iron doors will open. We'll still live with the outside, with its people and animals, struggle and wind—                                I  mean with the outside beyond the walls. I mean, however and wherever we are,        we must live as if we will never die.

III

This earth will grow cold, a star among stars               and one of the smallest, a gilded mote on blue velvet—  I mean this, our great earth. This earth will grow cold one day, not like a block of ice or a dead cloud even but like an empty walnut it will roll along  in pitch-black space . . . You must grieve for this right now —you have to feel this sorrow now— for the world must be loved this much                               if you're going to say "I lived". . .

Tell Me About Istanbul

Nazim Hikmet

Stop! Let the water of the coffee boil, Tell me about İstanbul, how was it? Tell me about Bosphorus, how was it? June is washed by the runaway rains with vibrations, Would that seven hills get dried by Such a hot sun like a mothers care…

Tell me people laughed there, In trains, ferries, buses. I like it even if its a lie, say it. Always agony, always agony, always agony Had enough…

Stop! Let it stay, don’t turn the TV on Tell me about İstanbul, how was it? Tell me about the city of cities, how was it? While looking in my forbidden eyes from the hills of Beyoglu, Make compliment about bridges, Sarayburnu, minarets and halic. Could you say a hello, secretly…

Tell me people laughed there, In trains, ferries, buses. I like it even if its a lie, say it. Always agony, always agony, always agony Had enough…

Stop! Leave it, don’t move stay like that, please Your scent is like İstanbul, and your eyes like İstanbul nights. Now come and hug, hug me the one with henna. Under the sky, just there together The dream of starting over by saying thanks god Is like a river in the desert of your longing.

Tell me people laughed there, In trains, ferries, buses. I like it even if its a lie, say it. Always agony, always agony, always agony Had enough…

On Living

Nazim Hikmet

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 occupation.

Living is no laughing matter:

you must take it seriously,

so much so and to such a degree

that, for example, your hands tied behind your back,

your back to the wall,

or else in a laboratory

in your white coat and safety glasses,

you can die for people—

even for people whose faces you've never seen,

even though you know living

is the most real, the most beautiful thing.

I mean, you must take living so seriously

that even at seventy, for example, you'll plant olive trees—

and not for your children, either,

but because although you fear death you don't believe it,

because living, I mean, weighs heavier.

II

Let's say we're seriously ill, need surgery—

which is to say we might not get up

from the white table.

Even though it's impossible not to feel sad

about going a little too soon,

we'll still laugh at the jokes being told,

we'll look out the window to see if it's raining,

or still wait anxiously

for the latest newscast. . .

Let's say we're at the front—

for something worth fighting for, say.

There, in the first offensive, on that very day,

we might fall on our face, dead.

We'll know this with a curious anger,

but we'll still worry ourselves to death

about the outcome of the war, which could last years.

Let's say we're in prison

and close to fifty,

and we have eighteen more years, say,

before the iron doors will open.

We'll still live with the outside,

with its people and animals, struggle and wind—

I mean with the outside beyond the walls.

I mean, however and wherever we are,

we must live as if we will never die.

III

This earth will grow cold,

a star among stars

and one of the smallest,

a gilded mote on blue velvet—

I mean this, our great earth.

This earth will grow cold one day,

not like a block of ice

or a dead cloud even

but like an empty walnut it will roll along

in pitch-black space . . .

You must grieve for this right now

—you have to feel this sorrow now—

for the world must be loved this much

if you're going to say "I lived". . .

Some Advice To Those Who Will Spend Time In Prison

Nazim Hikmet

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 you have left,

you won't say,

"Better I had swung from the end of a rope

like a flag" --

You'll put your foot down and live.

It may not be a pleasure exactly,

but it's your solemn duty

to live one more day

to spite the enemy.

Part of you may live alone inside,

like a tone at the bottom of a well.

But the other part

must be so caught up

in the flurry of the world

that you shiver there inside

when outside, at forty days' distance, a leaf moves.

To wait for letters inside,

to sing sad songs,

or to lie awake all night staring at the ceiling

is sweet but dangerous.

Look at your face from shave to shave,

forget your age,

watch out for lice

and for spring nights,

and always remember

to eat every last piece of bread--

also, don't forget to laugh heartily.

And who knows,

the woman you love may stop loving you.

Don't say it's no big thing:

it's like the snapping of a green branch

to the man inside.

To think of roses and gardens inside is bad,

to think of seas and mountains is good.

Read and write without rest,

and I also advise weaving

and making mirrors.

I mean, it's not that you can't pass

ten or fifteen years inside

and more --

you can,

as long as the jewel

on the left side of your chest doesn't lose it's lustre!

Istanbul House of Detention

Nazim Hikmet - an extract from this great poem

I love my country: I’ve swung on its plane trees, I’ve slept in its prisons. Nothing lifts my spirits like its songs and tobacco… My county: goats on the Ankara plain, the sheen of their long blond silky hair. The succulent plump hazelnuts of Giresun. Amasya apples with fragrant red cheeks, olives, figs, melons, and bunches and bunches of grapes all colours, then ploughs, and black oxen, and then my people, ready to embrace with the wide-eyed joy of children anything modern, beautiful and good – my honest, hard-working, brave people, half full, half hungry, half slaves…

Tell Me About Istanbul

Nazim Hikmet

Stop! Let the water of the coffee boil, Tell me about İstanbul, how was it? Tell me about Bosphorus, how was it? June is washed by the runaway rains with vibrations, Would that seven hills get dried by Such a hot sun like a mothers care…

Tell me people laughed there, In trains, ferries, buses. I like it even if its a lie, say it. Always agony, always agony, always agony Had enough…

Stop! Let it stay, don’t turn the TV on Tell me about İstanbul, how was it? Tell me about the city of cities, how was it? While looking in my forbidden eyes from the hills of Beyoglu, Make compliment about bridges, Sarayburnu, minarets and halic. Could you say a hello, secretly…

Tell me people laughed there, In trains, ferries, buses. I like it even if its a lie, say it. Always agony, always agony, always agony Had enough…

Stop! Leave it, don’t move stay like that, please Your scent is like İstanbul, and your eyes like İstanbul nights. Now come and hug, hug me the one with henna. Under the sky, just there together The dream of starting over by saying thanks god Is like a river in the desert of your longing.

Tell me people laughed there, In trains, ferries, buses. I like it even if its a lie, say it. Always agony, always agony, always agony Had enough…

Things I Didn’t Know I Loved

Nazim Hikmet

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 like comparing nightfall to a tired bird I didn't know I loved the earth can someone who hasn't worked the earth love it I've never worked the earth it must be my only Platonic love and here I've loved rivers all this time whether motionless like this they curl skirting the hills European hills crowned with chateaux or whether stretched out flat as far as the eye can see I know you can't wash in the same river even once I know the river will bring new lights you'll never see I know we live slightly longer than a horse but not nearly as long as a crow I know this has troubled people before and will trouble those after me I know all this has been said a thousand times before and will be said after me I didn't know I loved the sky cloudy or clear the blue vault Andrei studied on his back at Borodino in prison I translated both volumes of War and Peace into Turkish I hear voices not from the blue vault but from the yard the guards are beating someone again I didn't know I loved trees bare beeches near Moscow in Peredelkino they come upon me in winter noble and modest beeches are Russian the way poplars are Turkish "the poplars of Izmir losing their leaves. . . they call me The Knife. . . lover like a young tree. . . I blow stately mansions sky-high" in the Ilgaz woods in 1920 I tied an embroidered linen handkerchief to a pine bough for luck I never knew I loved roads even the asphalt kind Vera's behind the wheel we're driving from Moscow to the Crimea Koktebele formerly "Goktepé ili" in Turkish the two of us inside a closed box the world flows past on both sides distant and mute I was never so close to anyone in my life bandits stopped me on the red road between Bolu and Geredé when I was eighteen apart from my life I didn't have anything in the wagon they could take and at eighteen our lives are what we value least I've written this somewhere before wading through a dark muddy street I'm going to the shadow play Ramazan night a paper lantern leading the way maybe nothing like this ever happened maybe I read it somewhere an eight-year-old boy going to the shadow play Ramazan night in Istanbul holding his grandfather's hand his grandfather has on a fez and is wearing the fur coat with a sable collar over his robe and there's a lantern in the servant's hand and I can't contain myself for joy flowers come to mind for some reason poppies cactuses jonquils in the jonquil garden in Kadikoy Istanbul I kissed Marika fresh almonds on her breath I was seventeen my heart on a swing touched the sky I didn't know I loved flowers friends sent me three red carnations in prison I just remembered the stars I love them too whether I'm floored watching them from below or whether I'm flying at their side I have some questions for the cosmonauts were the stars much bigger did they look like huge jewels on black velvet or apricots on orange did you feel proud to get closer to the stars I saw colour photos of the cosmos in Ogonek magazine now don't be upset comrades but nonfigurative shall we say or abstract well some of them looked just like such paintings which is to say they were terribly figurative and concrete my heart was in my mouth looking at them they are our endless desire to grasp things seeing them I could even think of death and not feel at all sad I never knew I loved the cosmos snow flashes in front of my eyes both heavy wet steady snow and the dry whirling kind I didn't know I liked snow I never knew I loved the sun even when setting cherry-red as now in Istanbul too it sometimes sets in postcard colours but you aren't about to paint it that way I didn't know I loved the sea except the Sea of Azov or how much I didn't know I loved clouds whether I'm under or up above them whether they look like giants or shaggy white beasts moonlight the falsest the most languid the most petit-bourgeois strikes me I like it I didn't know I liked rain whether it falls like a fine net or splatters against the glass my heart leaves me tangled up in a net or trapped inside a drop and takes off for uncharted countries I didn't know I loved rain but why did I suddenly discover all these passions sitting by the window on the Prague-Berlin train is it because I lit my sixth cigarette one alone could kill me is it because I'm half dead from thinking about someone back in Moscow her hair straw-blond eyelashes blue the train plunges on through the pitch-black night I never knew I liked the night pitch-black sparks fly from the engine I didn't know I loved sparks I didn't know I loved so many things and I had to wait until sixty to find it out sitting by the window on the Prague-Berlin train watching the world disappear as if on a journey of no return 19 April 1962 Moscow

A Spring Piece Left In The Middle

Nazim Hikmet

Taut, thick fingers punch the teeth of my typewriter. Three words are down on paper in capitals: SPRING SPRING SPRING... And me -- poet, proof reader, the man who's forced to read two thousand bad lines every day for two liras-- why, since spring has come, am I still sitting here like a ragged black chair? My head puts on its cap by itself, I fly out of the printer’s, I'm on the street. The lead dirt of the composing room on my face, seventy-five cents in my pocket. SPRING IN THE AIR... In the barbershops they're powdering the sallow cheeks of the pariah of Publishers Row. And in the store windows three-colour book covers flash like sun-struck mirrors. But me, I don't have even a book of ABC's that lives on this street and carries my name on its door! But what the hell... I don't look back, the lead dirt of the composing room on my face, seventy-five cents in my pocket, SPRING IN THE AIR... * The piece got left in the middle. It rained and swamped the lines. But oh! what I would have written... The starving writer sitting on his three-thousand-page three-volume manuscript wouldn't stare at the window of the kebab joint but with his shining eyes would take the Armenian bookseller's dark plump daughter by storm... The sea would start smelling sweet. Spring would rear up like a sweating red mare and, leaping onto its bare back, I'd ride it into the water. Then my typewriter would follow me every step of the way. I'd say: "Oh, don't do it! Leave me alone for an hour..." then my head-my hair failing out-- would shout into the distance: "I AM IN LOVE..." * I'm twenty-seven, she's seventeen. "Blind Cupid, lame Cupid, both blind and lame Cupid said, Love this girl," I was going to write; I couldn't say it but still can! But if it rained, if the lines I wrote got swamped, if I have twenty-five cents left in my pocket, what the hell... Hey, spring is here spring is here spring spring is here! My blood is budding inside me!

Giaconda and Si-Ya-U

Nazim Hikmet (excerpt from Part II, The Flight)

FROM THE AUTHOR'S NOTEBOOK

Ah, friends, Gioconda is in a bad way… Take it from me,        if she didn't have hopes             of getting word from afar, she'd steal a guard's pistol,        and aiming to give the color of death to her lips' cursed smile,        she'd empty it into her canvas breast…

FROM GIOCONDA'S DIARY

O that Leonardo da Vinci's brush had conceived me                under the gilded sun of China! That the painted mountain behind me had been a sugar-loaf Chinese mountain, that the pink-white color of my long face                                 could fade, that my eyes were almond-shaped! And if only my smile            could show what I feel in my heart! Then in the arms of him who is far away       I could have roamed through China…

FROM THE AUTHOR'S NOTEBOOK

I had a heart-to-heart talk with Gioconda today. The hours flew by                one after another like the pages of a spell-binding book. And the decision we reached will cut like a knife                     Gioconda's life                                     in two. Tomorrow night you'll see us carry it out…

FROM THE AUTHOR'S NOTEBOOK

The clock of Notre Dame                       strikes midnight.

Midnight        midnight. Who knows at this very moment          which drunk is killing his wife? Who know at this very moment          which ghost                  is haunting the halls                                of a castle?

Who knows at this very moment          which thief                   is surmounting                        the most unsurmountable wall?

Midnight… Midnight… Who knows at this very moment… I know very well that in every novel                          this is the darkest hour.

Midnight           strikes fear into the heart of every reader… But what could I do? When my monoplane landed                   on the roof of the Louvre, the clock of Notre Dame                    struck midnight. And, strangely enough, I wasn't afraid as I patted the aluminium rump of my plane                          and stepped down on the roof… Uncoiling the fifty-fathom-long rope wound around my waist, I lowered it outside Gioconda's window like a vertical bridge between heaven and hell. I blew my shrill whistle three times. And I got an immediate response to those three shrill whistles. Gioconda threw open her window. This poor farmer's daughter                     done up as the Virgin Mary chucked her gilded frame and, grabbing hold of the rope, pulled herself up…

SI-YA-U, my friend,             you were truly lucky to fall to a lion-hearted woman like her…

FROM GIOCONDA'S DIARY

This thing called an airplane                      is a winged iron horse. Below us is Paris    with its Eiffel Tower—         a sharp-nosed, pock-marked, moon-like face. We're climbing,              climbing higher. Like an arrow of fire              we pierce                         the darkness. The heavens rise overhead,                          looming closer; the sky is like a meadow full of flowers.                     We're climbing,                                     climbing higher.

Giaconda and Si-Ya-U

Nazim Hikmet - a curious piece of intriguing poetry, weaving disparate events together

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 been placed.

The poet inscribing the present treatise knows more than a little about the fate of the real Gioconda. She fell in love with a seductive graceful youth: a honey-tongued almond-eyed Chinese named SI-YA-U. Gioconda ran off after her lover; Gioconda was burned in a Chinese city.

I, Nazim Hikmet, authority on this matter, thumbing my nose at friend and foe five times a day, undaunted, claim I can prove it; if I can't, I'll be ruined and banished forever from the realm of poesy.

1928

Hiroshima Child

Nazim Hikmet

I come and stand at every door But none can hear my silent tread I knock and yet remain unseen For I am dead for I am dead

I'm only seven though I died In Hiroshima long ago I'm seven now as I was then When children die they do not grow

My hair was scorched by swirling flame My eyes grew dim my eyes grew blind Death came and turned my bones to dust And that was scattered by the wind

I need no fruit I need no rice I need no sweets nor even bread I ask for nothing for myself For I am dead for I am dead

All that I need is that for peace You fight today you fight today So that the children of this world Can live and grow and laugh and play

Regarding Art

Nazim Hikmet writes of what enthuses him

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 on wings made of steel like the I-beams of my suspension bridges! I don't pretend the nightingale's lament to the rose isn't easy on the ears... But the language that really speaks to me are Beethoven sonatas played on copper, iron, wood, bone, and catgut... You can "have" galloping off in a cloud of dust! Me, I wouldn't trade for the purest-bred Arabian steed the sixth mph of my iron horse running on iron tracks! Sometimes my eye is caught like a big dumb fly by the masterly spider webs in the corners of my room. But I really look up to the seventy-seven-story, reinforced-concrete mountains my blue-shirted builders create! Were I to meet the male beauty "young Adonis, god of Byblos," on a bridge, I'd probably never notice; but I can't help staring into my philosopher's glassy eyes or my fireman's square face red as a sweating sun! Though I can smoke third-class cigarettes filled on my electric workbenches, I can't roll tobacco - even the finest- in paper by hand and smoke it! I didn't -- "wouldn't" -- trade my wife dressed in her leather cap and jacket for Eve's nakedness! Maybe I don't have a "poetic soul"? What can I do when I love my own children more than mother Nature's!

This Thing Called Prague

Nazim Hikmet - a Turkish poet of monumental talent and stature

This thing called Prague is a magic mirror. I look, and it shows me in my twenties, I am like leaping. I'm like thirty-two healthy teeth,         and the world is a walnut. But I want nothing for myself, except to touch the fingers of the girl I love--   they hold the greatest secret of the world. My hands break more bread for my friends         than for myself. I kiss all the eyes with trachoma   in the villages of Anatolia. Somewhere in the world I fall,   a martyr to the world revolution. They pass my heart   on a velvet cushion      like a Medal of the Red Flag. The band plays a funeral march. We bury our dead in the earth         under a wall         like fertile seeds. And on the earth our songs      aren't Turkish or Russian or English                  but just songs. Lenin lies sick in a snowy forest: brows knitted, he thinks of certain people, stares into the white darkness,        and sees the days to come. I am like leaping. I'm like thirty-two healthy teeth,         and the world is a walnut            with a steel shell               but full of good news. This thing called Prague is a magic mirror. I look again, and it shows me on my deathbed. Arms stretched out at my sides, sweat beads on my forehead like drops of wax. The wallpaper is green. The sooty rooftops of the big city out the window aren't Istanbul's. My eyes are still open --no one's closed them-- and nobody knows yet. Bend down, look into my pupils: you'll see a young woman waiting alone at a rainy bus stop. Close my eyes,   comrade, and leave the room                  on tiptoe.

I Think of You

Nazim Hikmet

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.

Tell Me About Istanbul

Nazim Hikmet

Stop! Let the water of the coffee boil, Tell me about İstanbul, how was it? Tell me about Bosphorus, how was it? June is washed by the runaway rains with vibrations, Would that seven hills get dried by Such a hot sun like a mothers care…

Tell me people laughed there, In trains, ferries, buses. I like it even if its a lie, say it. Always agony, always agony, always agony Had enough…

Stop! Let it stay, don’t turn the TV on Tell me about İstanbul, how was it? Tell me about the city of cities, how was it? While looking in my forbidden eyes from the hills of Beyoglu, Make compliment about bridges, Sarayburnu, minarets and halic. Could you say a hello, secretly…

Tell me people laughed there, In trains, ferries, buses. I like it even if its a lie, say it. Always agony, always agony, always agony Had enough…

Stop! Leave it, don’t move stay like that, please Your scent is like İstanbul, and your eyes like İstanbul nights. Now come and hug, hug me the one with henna. Under the sky, just there together The dream of starting over by saying thanks god Is like a river in the desert of your longing.

Tell me people laughed there, In trains, ferries, buses. I like it even if its a lie, say it. Always agony, always agony, always agony Had enough…