In this business you must be hard and a little proud
not cruelty, grief, or sorrow
but death alone
. . . . . . . .must see you surrender. . .
poetry
from Silence by Nazim Hikmet
Yet, inside we keep quiet,
the way a bullet keeps quiet in its cartridge.
If there is a echo in the dome of the sky
louder than our silence, let it cry out!
Outside,
In the dark,
the sea is bursting open like a forest struck in its groin.
Inside, we keep quiet,
and the dungeon is silent
. . .like a wounded animal
. . . .whose blood is trickling into its heart.
translated by Talat S. Halman
Thoughts on a Quiet Night by Li Pai (Li Po)
Before my bed the light is so bright
it looks like a layer of frost
lifting my head I gaze at the moon
lying back down I think of home
translated by Red Pine
Optimism by Nazim Hikmet
I write poems
they don’t get published
but they will
I’m waiting for a letter with good news
maybe it will arrive the day I die
but it will come for sure
the world’s not run by governments or money
but people rule
a hundred years from now
maybe
but it will be for sure
translated by Randy Blasing & Nutlu Konuk
Thinking of My Home in Ch’ang-an While Traveling with the Army on the Ninth by Ts’en Shen
If only I could climb somewhere
but no one sends me wine
my poor distant garden of mums
blooms by a battlefield now
translated by Red Pine
Saying Goodbye on the Yi River by Lo Pin-wang
Here where Yen Tan said goodbye
a hero raised his hat with his courage
the men of the past are gone
but the water is still cold today
translated by Red Pine
This is Lo Pin-wang’s reference to a failed attempt to kill a tyrant and I post it for all those, here in Turkey and beyond, who oppose tyrants. The struggle never ends.
Returning To My Retreat by Ch’en T’uan
Through the red dust I tramped for ten years
green mountains though were often in my dreams
a purple cord brings fame but can’t compare to sleep
crimson gates are grand but having less is better
how sad to hear swords guarding a feeble lord
how depressing the songs of noisy drunks
I’m taking my old books back to my retreat
to wildflowers and birdsongs and the same old spring
translated by Red Pine
Declaration: for the martyr Yu Luoke by Bei Dao
Perhaps the last moment is here
I haven’t left a will
Only a pen. . .to my mother
I’m not a hero
In an era without heroes
I just wanted to be a man
The quiet horizon
Separated the ranks of the living from the dead
I had to choose the sky
And would never kneel on the ground
To let executioners look gigantic
So they could block the wind of freedom
Out of starlike bullet holes
A bloody dawn is flowing
from the book The Red Azalea
translated by Fang Dai, Dennis Ding, & Edward Morin
for martyrs everywhere
Silhouette by Annette M’Baye
Behind, sun, before, shadow!
A watergourd on a stately head,
A breast, a strip of loincloth fluttering,
Two feet that erase the pattern on the sand.
translated by Kathleen Weaver
Penance by Sherman Alexie
I remember sun-
days when the man I
call my father made
me shoot free throws, one
for every day of my life
so far. I remember
the sin of imperfect
spin, the ball falling in-
to that moment between
a father and forgive-
ness, between the hands reach-
ing up and everything
they can possibly hold.
Leonard Durso 