The Strangest Creature on Earth
You’re like a scorpion, my brother,
you live in cowardly darkness
like a scorpion.
You’re like a sparrow, my brother,
always in a sparrow’s flutter.
You’re like a clam, my brother,
closed like a clam, content,
And you’re frightening, my brother,
like the mouth of an extinct volcano.
Not one,
not five-
unfortunately, you number millions.
You’re like a sheep, my brother:
when the cloaked drover raises his stick,
you quickly join the flock
and run, almost proudly, to the slaughterhouse.
I mean you’re strangest creature on earth-
even stranger than the fish
that couldn’t see the ocean for the water.
And the oppression in this world
is thanks to you.
And if we’re hungry, tired, covered with blood,
and still being crushed like grapes for our wine,
the fault is yours-
I can hardly bring myself to say it,
but most of the fault, my dear brother, is yours.
1947 by Nazim Hikmet Ran
Ran, Nazim Hikmet (1902-1963)
Turkish communist poet. Born in Salonica, in 1902. He studied at the Galatasaray Lycée in Istanbul and attended the Naval War School in Heybeliada. While he was a board officer dropped because of ill health. He went to Anatolia to join independence war and worked as a teacher in Bolu. Then over Trabzon and Batum went to Moscow. At the University Kutv he studied political economy and sociology. He joined Communist Party of Turkey. In 1924 he returned to Turkey. Because of his articles and poems in the communist periodical “Aydinlik” he was sentenced to prison for 15 years, but escaped to Moscow. After the Amnesty Law at 1928 he returned again to Turkey. He worked at the periodical “Resimli Ay” In 1932 he was sentenced again to prison for 4 years, but this time pardoned in 1933 in the General Amnesty of 10th Year of Republic. He worked as a journalist and in the film studios. In 1938 his poems and books was found in the War School and he was condemned to prison for 28 years 4 month because of his “agitation in army”. He was prison in Cankiri and Bursa. After a international campaign he was released but he lived under the police control. He escaped again to Moscow. At 25 July 1951 he lost his Turkish citizenship but became a Polish citizen. He died at 3 June 1963. His grave is in Moscow.
Poem and Quotes from: https://www.marxists.org/
He was, he is great Turkish poet. And another poem from him:
On living
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 when nobody didn’t force you
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.
Nazim Hikmet Ran
And now I see that all was in vain. It seems like a joke. I resarched the tags right now, there is no tags on wordpress about Nazim Hikmet Ran. Noone mentioned until today, if its mean is this. I can understand, there are uninterested men, women, who claimed “I am poet or I am writer.” Really! Yes you are all writer and poets, not interested real world. Bravooo!
If the world does not care about and everyone does not see anything other than own arrogance, and those who do not know the real value of this world, the world has become an end. Unfortunately, there were people who risked death to save the world. There was great people as Nazim Hikmet Ran.
The people who was brave to say these words:
“Ведь если я гореть не буду,
и если ты гореть не будешь,
и если мы гореть не будем,
так кто же здесь
рассеет тьму?”
“Sen yanmazsan
Ben yanmazsam
Biz yanmazsak
Nasil cikar karanliklar aydinliga”
“If I don’t burn,
if you don’t burn
if we don’t burn
how will the light vanquish the darkness?”
Or, have you any heard the beautiful words like these:
“To live! Like a tree alone and free
Like a forest in brotherhood”
He said these…
He was a traitor for American imperialism…
for “traitor” poem: http://www.brighteningglance.org/traitor.html
And today, how a man can stand against the hypocrite and flattery of British and American imperialism? Without thinking, even to have to learn at least two languages other than mother language using, is an American cultural imperialism. Despite this, he would be underrated. These actually pass their mind into conversation which was made with an imperialist:
“Why can not you speak/write English as an elegant British?”
“I can understand what you mean, but you’re an idiot enough that you can not understand other languages I know.”
And, the people like Nazim Hikmet, who is embracing all these people in peace, they do not see him as necessary to be remembered.
I’m done…
for more poems of him : https://www.marxists.org/subject/art/literature/nazim/index.htm
This post will have only one tag, Nazim Hikmet Ran, Nazim Hikmet.
Tonight, the new “internal security” laws, which are wanted by AKP’s insist but the all opposition parties are opposed, were discussed at Turkish Grand National Assembly. In the congress, AKP deputies have attacked the other parties deputies with hammer.
unnecessary news from earth 