I would dream

Bir deniz hayal ediyorum, Marmara.
#BuGeceAnlatmakİstediğim
such a difficult sentence.

Rüzgâr, yıldızlar ve su.
(...)
Işıltılı, kara bir yelken gibi ince direğinde geminin.
Geçmekteyiz içinden bir sayısız
bir uçsuz bucaksız yıldızlar âleminin.
Hikmet, so good for translating practice.

'dusk settle softly over Istanbul'

Loving you
Nazim Hikmet

Loving you is like eating bread dipped in salt,

like waking feverish at night

and putting my mouth to the water faucet,

like opening a heavy unlabeled parcel

eagerly, happily, cautiously.

Loving you is like flying over the sea

for the first time, like feeling dusk settle

softly over Istanbul.

Loving you is like saying “I’m alive.”

- -
a foto e a associação é do Istanbul per italiani, mas serve para mim também.
seja como for: Hikmet é um dos maiores poetas do século passado.
Hikmet é a voz da Turquia laica.
outro poema para ler.

'seed of light'

A strange feeling
Nazim Hikmet

"The plum trees
---------------are in bloom
- the wild apricot flowers first,
-----------------------------the plum last...

My love,
let's sit
knee to knee
on the grass.
The air is delicious and light
- but not really warm yet -
and the almonds are green
-------------------and fuzzy, still
----------------------------very soft...

We're happy
------------because we're alive.
We'd probably have been killed long ago
if you were in London,
if I were in Tobruk or on an English freighter...

Put your hands on your knees, my love
- your wrists thick and white -
and open your left hand:
the daylight is inside your palm
--------------------like an apricot...
Of the people dead in yesterday's air raid,
----------------------about a hundred were under fire,
twenty-four still babies...

I like the color of pomegranate seeds, my love
- a pomegranate seed, seed of light -
I like melons fragant,
my plums tart..."

...a rainy day
far from fruits and you
- not a single tree has bloomed yet,
and there's even a chance of snow -
in Bursa prison,
carried away by a strange feeling
and about to explode,
I write this out of pigheadedness
- out of sheer spite - for myself and the people I love.

(1941)

- -

"Once that's done, you're all set. Free to roam the Open Library, discovering treasures, making connections, correcting errors, or sprinkling tidbits you know about books across the catalog. Naturally, you're also welcome to simply explore. Apart from over 20 million bibliographic records, we also have over 1 million free, readable books available for you to read, right now."
e assim se adere à openlibrary.org, um milhão de livros que se podem ler entre os quais este livro de poemas seleccionados de Nazim Hikmet que procuro há tanto tempo. este poema em particular faz parte dos poemas escolhidos escritos na prisão. a viagem istambulita alargou o universo da minha própria ignorância, em expansão sem big bang e sem limites.

e não será tão clara a corrente subterrânea que corre sob Pamuk, Cavafy, Dostoyevsky, undertow:

The City
C.P. Cavafy

You said: “I’ll go to another country, go to another shore,
find another city better than this one.
Whatever I try to do is fated to turn out wrong
and my heart lies buried as though it were something dead.
How long can I let my mind moulder in this place?
Wherever I turn, wherever I happen to look,
I see the black ruins of my life, here,
where I’ve spent so many years, wasted them, destroyed them totally.”

You won’t find a new country, won’t find another shore.
This city will always pursue you. You will walk
the same streets, grow old in the same neighborhoods,
will turn gray in these same houses.
You will always end up in this city. Don’t hope for things elsewhere:
there is no ship for you, there is no road.
As you’ve wasted your life here, in this small corner,
you’ve destroyed it everywhere else in the world.

- -
a definição e a história de 'nacionalismo' levam-no para campos de exclusão: estes três autores dão nova vista ao apego à sua própria origem: a cidade, a língua. (tu serás sempre a tua cidade, para onde quer que vás)-

(chego a conclusões: hoje como antes, os livros legíveis - os que interessa ler - são uma pequena percentagem de todos os livros, nada mudou nesse aspecto)

'warm loaf of bread' (Nâzım Hikmet)

Let's give the world to the children

Let's give the world to the children just for one day
like a baloon in bright and striking colors to play with
let them play singing among the stars
let's give the world to the children
like a huge apple like a warm loaf of bread
at least for one day let them have enough
let's give the world to the children
at least for one day let the world learn friendship
children will get the world from our hands
they'll plant immortal trees.

Nâzım Hikmet

- -

the best sea has yet to be crossed.
the best child has yet to be born.
our best days have yet to be lived;
and the best word I want to say to you
is the word I have not yet said.

Nâzım Hikmet, daqui.

(via o., claro)

na escuridão, Nazim Hikmet

I shut my eyes tight

I shut my eyes tight:
you are there in the dark.
lying on your back in the darkness,
your forehead and wrists are a golden triangle in the dark.

My darling, you are inside my eyelids that are closed,
there are songs inside my closed lids.
Now everything starts with you in there.
Now, nothing remains there that was mine before you
and nothing that doesn't belong to you.

- -

Prison to prison

Behind me are the fifteen years I've spent in prisons
-----------ahead of me seventeen more...
It all waves in my mind like a banner
------------------------red as blood.

I love a woman-
-----------she's white as milk,
I sing a song
-----------which has more hope than all other songs.
My song has the joy, the sorrow, the triumph of my people
and in the palm of my hand there's my woman's hand
-----------------------which cannot touch mine.

- -

se bem que em universos distantes, cavafy-hilmet, vultos imensos do início do século 20 no extremo oriental da europa.

"Today is Sunday", Nâzım Hikmet

Today is Sunday.
For the first time they took me out into the sun today
And for the first time in my life I was aghast
that the sky is so far away
----------------and so blue
----------------and so vast
---------------------I stood there without motion.
Then I sat on the ground in respectful devotion
leaning against the white wall.
Who cares about the waves with wich I yearn to roll
Or about strife or freedom or my wife right now.
The soil, the sun, and me...
I feel so happy.



----
genial Hikmet, com as suas palavras tão brutais.

"Waitress", Nâzım Hikmet

vivere come una fiamma ("Don Quixote", Nâzım Hikmet)

DON CHISCIOTTE

Il cavaliere dell'eterna gioventù
segui, verso la cinquantina,
la legge che batteva nel suo cuore.
Partì un bel mattino di luglio
per conquistare, il bello, il vero, il giusto.
Davanti a lui c'era il mondo
con i suoi giganti assurdi e abbietti
sotto di lui Ronzinante
triste ed eroico.

Lo so quando si è presi da questa passione
e il cuore ha un peso rispettabile
non c'è niente da fare, Don Chisciotte,
niente da fare
è necessario battersi
contro i mulini a vento.

Hai ragione tu, Dulcinea
é la donna più bella del mondo
certo
bisognava gridarlo in faccia
ai bottegai
certo
dovevano buttartisi addosso
e coprirti di botte
ma tu sei il cavaliere invincibile degli assetati
tu continuerai a vivere come una fiamma
nel tuo pesante guscio di ferro
e Dulcinea
sarà ogni giorno più bella.

- -





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 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 fact
at the face of street-traders;
but they'll pull you down from your horse
and beat you up.
But you, the unbeatable knight of our curse,
will continue to glow behind the heavy iron visor
and Dulcinea will become even more beautiful.

Nazim Hikmet
Translated by Taner Baybars

- -


Don Quijote

Caballero de la juventud inmortal:
a los cincuenta años se dejó arrastrar por su idea, que latía en su pecho.
Una mañana de julio salió a la conquista
de lo bello, lo recto, lo justo.

Ante sí: el mundo con sus gigantes tontos y mulos.
Debajo: Rocinante. Triste, pero heroico.
Yo lo sé: si por azar cayeras en la pura nostalgia
y tienes además un corazón más blando que la nieve,
no habrá más caminos, Don Quijote mío, no habrá más caminos.
Hay que luchar con los molinos.

Tienes razón.
Sin duda, tu Dulcinea es la mujer más bella de la tierra.
Sin duda hay que gritarlo a la cara de los hipócritas.
Te arrojarán a tierra.
Te apalearán ferozmente.
Pero tú, paladín invencible de nuestra sed,
seguirás ardiendo como una llama
firme dentro de tu coraza de hierro.

Y Dulcinea se volverá doblemente más bella.

- -

falta-me a tradução deste poema para português por Saramago. ou melhor: gostaria de ter este livro.
outros em português.

"On Living", Nâzım Hikmet

"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."

parte do poema de Nâzım Hikmet.

soprado pelo google reader

-
About My Poetry
Nâzım Hikmet

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 my everything.
I guard
my riches and my real-estate
-- my honey pot, I mean --
from pests of every species,
Brother, just wait...
As long as I've got
honey in my pot,
bees will come to it
from Timbuktu...

::::......
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