Poems For Piraye (9 To 10 O’Clock Poems)

Remembering you is good

in prison

amid the news

of victory and death

as my fortieth year passes...

Remembering you is good

your hand

forgotten upon a blue dress

your hair

with the grave softness

of the earth of my beloved Istanbul.

This joy of loving you

is like a second person inside me...

The smell of geranium leaves

on your fingertips

warm and comforting

The invitation of your flesh

a hot

intense darkness

scored by vivid red lines...

Remembering you is good

or writing about you

as I lie on my back

in prison

thinking of such and such a day

at such and such a place

of some words you said

not of the words so much

but of the world and you within them...

Remembering you is good

I must carve some things for you again

a jewel box

a ring

I must weave a length of thin silk

then jump up

and clutching the window bars

shout what I have written for you

to the innocent blue

of freedom.

Remembering you is good

in prison

amid the news

of victory and death

as my fortieth year passes...

1942

At this late hour

on this autumn night

I am filled with your words.

Eternal

like time like matter

Naked

like an eye

Heavy

like a hand

Words which sparkle

like stars.

Your words came to me

from your heart

your head

your body

Your words delivered you

mother

woman

comrade

Your words were sad

they were bitter

hopeful

heroic

Your words were human.

September 20, 1945

Our son is sick

his father in prison

your heavy head

fallen in your tired palms

the laughter drained from your golden eyes.

People

will surely carry people

on to sunnier days

our son will get well

his father out of prison

your golden eyes

will fill with laughter once more...

Our fate

is the world's fate.

September 21, 1945

Reading books

you're there inside me

Hearing songs

you're inside me

Eating my bread

you're sitting before me

Or at my work

you're before me.

You're my "silent partner"

everywhere.

Although we cannot speak

Although we cannot hear

each other's voices.

You're my widow of eight years.

September 22, 1945

What is she doing now

this second, this very second?

Is she at home, outside,

working, lying down, on her feet?

could she be raising her arm?

O my love!

how this movement bares

her strong white wrist!

What is she doing now

this second, this very second?

Perhaps she has a kitten on her lap,

she's petting it.

Or, perhaps she's walking, about to step.

O those feet I cherish,

those feet which bring her to me

on tip-toe when days are dark...

And what is she thinking about,

of me?

Or, who knows,

why the beans take so long to cook?

Or, even,

why the majority of men are so miserable?

What is she thinking now

this second, this very second?

September 23, 1945

The loveliest sea

is the sea not yet traveled

The loveliest child

is the child not yet born

Our loveliest days

are those we have not yet lived through.

And the loveliest word I would say to you

is the word that I have not yet said.

September 24, 1945

Squatting, I look at the earth

I look at the grasses

I look at the insects

I look at the deep blue flowers opening from stems.

I look at you, my love,

You are like the spring earth.

Stretched out on my back, I see the sky

I see the tree's branches

I see the storks flying

I see you, my love,

You are like the spring sky.

Lighting a night fire, I touch the fire

I touch the water

I touch the cloth

I touch the silver

I touch you, my love

You are the fire lit beneath the stars.

Inside of people, I love people

I love action

I love thinking

I love my struggle

I love you, my love,

You are a person inside my struggle.

1945

9 PM

horns blare in the yard

soon they will close the cell doors.

This prison term

is longer than the others

nearly eight years now...

Living is a labor of hope, my love,

living is a serious business

like loving you...

September 25, 1945

They enslaved us

threw us in prison

me

inside the walls

you

outside the walls.

But that is nothing,

the true evil is that

knowingly

or unknowingly

a man carries the prison

inside himself...

Most of the men

fallen to this state

are honorable

hard-working

good men,

and deserve to be loved

as I love you.

September 26, 1945

Thinking of you

is a beautiful thing

a hopeful thing

a thing like hearing

the most beautiful song

from the world's most beautiful voice...

But hope no longer is enough for me

I no longer want to hear the song—

I want to sing it...

September 30, 1945

Above the mountain

there is a cloud

swollen with sun above the mountain.

Another day

passed without you

with and without the world another day.

They will open soon

in bursts of red

nightflowers will open in bursts of red.

Soundless bold wings

carry our separation

that separation like an exile

from the homeland...

October 1, 1945

The wind flows by

no cherry branch moves

with the same wind twice.

Birds chatter in the trees:

wings poised for flight.

A closed door:

waiting to be thrown open.

I want you

I want life to be as lovely

and friendly and good as you.

I know this feast of misery

is not yet finished.

But it will be finished...

October 2, 1945

Both of us know, my love,

they taught us

the hunger, the shivering,

the withering exhaustion,

the separation from each other.

Still, we have not been forced to kill

nor tasted the moment of being killed.

Both of us know, my love,

we can teach them

to fight for our people

to love each day

a little stronger

a little more from our souls...

October 5, 1945

Clouds pass, heavy

and swollen with news,

Crushing in my fist

the letter that hasn't come yet,

Tears in the corners of my eyes,

goodbyes said to the endless earth,

And I want to shout: Piraye!

Pi-ra-ye!

October 6, 1945

At night, the wind carries the cries of men

across the open seas

At night, there is danger still in straying

across the open seas.

This field, unplowed for six years,

still bears the tracks of tank treads

This winter, the snow will cover

these untouched tracks of tank treads.

Ah, my dearest, the antennas are lying again

so that the merchants of sweat can close

with 100% profits.

But those who have returned from Azrail's feast

have returned with their decisions made...

October 7, 1945

I've become unbearable again

sleepless, petty, cross.

You can see

I'm working one day

like a blasphemous shrew

like a raging animal.

And then

I'm on my back the next day

from morning to evening

a lazy folksong in my mouth

like a cigarette that has gone out.

The hate

and the pity I feel for myself

hold me totally in their grasp.

I've become unbearable again

sleepless, petty, cross.

As always, I'm unfair.

Without any reason

or any possibility of one,

and even though it's a vile humiliation

I can't help it,

I'm jealous.

Forgive me...

October 8, 1945

Last night I had a dream:

You were sitting at my feet,

You raised your head, turned

Your enormous golden eyes to me,

And asked a question,

Your wet lips opened and closed,

But I didn't hear your voice.

The hour struck as though somewhere

There was good news in the night.

Whispers of endlessness in the air,

My canary in its red cage

Singing the Song of Memo.

The small cracking sounds of seeds

Pushing and lifting the earth,

And the just and triumphant humming

Of some gathering comes to my ear.

Your wet lips still opened and closed,

But I didn't hear your voice.

I awoke in a nervous uncertainty.

I had fallen asleep over my book, it seems,

But I am wondering now

Whether all those voices were not your voice?

October 9, 1945

Looking in your eyes

I am drunk with the smell of warm earth

lost in a wheat field among the stalks...

Your eyes

are like an eternal substance, changing endlessly

pits without bottom, with flashes of green...

whose secret is given up a little each day

but never completely surrendered.

October 10, 1945

When I leave the prison to meet my death

And when we turn for the last time

to look at the city,

We shall be able to say these words, my love:

"Though you never made our hearts rejoice,

we worked hard as we could

thinking we could make you happy.

Roads to happiness lead on, as life goes on.

We are content, our hearts are satisfied

with the bread we earned;

Our eyes bear the afflictions

of separation from your light.

See, we have come

and now we are going.

May you be happy,

city of Aleppo..."

October 18, 1945

We are one half of an apple

the other half is this enormous world

We are one half of an apple

the other half is our people

You are one half of an apple

I am the other half

we are two...

October 27, 1945

The smell rises from the geraniums

The waves hum on the seas

Autumn is here with its full clouds

And intelligent earth...

My love, the year has reached its maturity.

It seems that we have known

Perhaps a thousand years' worth of life,

But we are still wide-eyed children

Running hand in hand in the sun...

October 28, 1945

Forget the flowering almond trees.

Why think of that which cannot be regained?

Dry your wet hair in the sun,

Your hair with the smell of ripe fruit,

That shines, heavy and damp, with redness.

My love, my love,

the season is autumn...

November 5, 1945

From above the roofs

of my distant city,

passing the tip

of the Marmara sea,

flying over

the autumn earth

Came your voice—

moist and mature—

For three minutes.

Then, the telephone

was closed down

like pitch darkness...

November 8, 1945

The last southwinds have begun to blow

warm and humming

like blood pouring from a vein.

I listen to the weather:

it's pulse is slowing down.

There is snow on Olympia's peak.

On the Kirezli plateau

the bears with great charm and majesty

lie down on the chestnut leaves to sleep.

The poplars on the plain undress.

Silkworm eggs will be taken soon

to their winter shelter.

Autumn is about to end,

The earth to enter its pregnant sleep.

And we will pass again one more winter

with this great rage inside,

warming ourselves in the fire

of our sacred hope...

November 12, 1945

They say

it doesn't allow description—

the misery of Istanbul.

They say

the people are crushed by hunger.

They say

tuberculosis lurks everywhere.

And the young girls, they say,

are taken in the ruins

and in theater loges.

This black news comes

from my distant city,

from the city of hard-working

honest people,

from the real Istanbul,

My love,

from the city which is your home,

which I carry on my back in a bag

wherever I am exiled

wherever I am in prison

Which I bear in my heart

like the grieving for a lost child

like your image

which I hold in my eyes...

November 13, 1945

Although you'll find carnations still

in vases now and then,

seeds are being scattered in the fields

plowed up long ago for planting

and olives, stuffed with oil,

are being picked now.

On one side we're moving into winter

on another the earth is being opened

for the seedlings of spring.

As for me

filled with longing

and heavy with impatience

for great travels,

I am lying in Bursa

like a ship at anchor...

November 20, 1945

Take out from your chest

the dress you wore

the first time I saw you

and dress up

like the spring trees.

Put in your hair the carnation

I am sending you from prison,

Lift your broad forehead

white and creased with those lines

that should be kissed,

And by no means look tired

or worried on such a day.

The wife of Nazim Hikmet must be beautiful

like the flag of a rebellion

on such a day!

December 4, 1945

A hole wore through the ship's hull

the slaves cut to pieces their chains

the wind from the northeast blew

about to hurl the ship upon the rocks.

This world

this pirate ship

will sink.

Whatever happens

it will sink.

And we will create

a free, spacious, hopeful world

like your face

my Piraye...

December 5, 1945

They are the enemies of hope, my love,

the enemies of a life

that grows and develops

of a tree that bears fruit

of water that flows.

Because death is stamped on their foreheads—

their teeth rot

their flesh decays—

They'll disappear

and never come back.

And surely, my love,

surely this lovely country of mine

will be a garden of brothers

without masters or slaves...

December 6, 1945

Enemy to Receb

the towel-maker in Bursa

Enemy to Hasan

the fitter in Karabük factory

Enemy to the woman Hatçe

the village peasant

Enemy to Süleyman

the worker

Enemy to me

Enemy to you

Enemy to thinking men.

My love, they are the enemy

of the country which houses them.

December 7, 1945

On the plain

trees burn in a final effort

spangles of gold

copper

brass and bronze.

Hooves of oxen

slowly, softly

two by two sink

in dampened earth.

And the mountains are soaked and gray

submerged in mist...

It's finished.

Perhaps this day is all

that is left of autumn.

And now the wild geese wing past

heading for Iznik lake.

Something cool in the air

like the smell of soot in the air

the smell of snow in the air...

Now to be outside!

Now to charge a horse straight for the mountains!

"But you don't know how to ride," you'll say.

Don't laugh at me

and don't be jealous

This new love of nature

I've acquired in prison

I love almost

but not as much

as I love you...

And both of you so far away...

December 12, 1945

Snow suddenly set in at night

morning began with crows

scattering from white branches.

Winter on the Bursa plain

past the eye's reaching

recalling endlessness.

My love, the season

burst through to change

after continuous struggle,

And proud,

working hard beneath the snow

Life

still pushing on

and up...

December 13, 1945

Damn, the winter has come down hard.

Who knows what's happened to you

and to my Istanbul.

Have you coal?

Can you get wood?

Stuff newspaper in the window cracks,

and go to bed early.

There's nothing in the house to sell,

I know...

Even when we shiver

half hungry

half full

Even in this we are in the majority

in our country

in our city

in the world.

December 14, 1945