I was the grandchild of a pasha in Halep

      at the age of three

A student at the Communist University

      in Moscow at the

      age of nineteen,

A guest of the Tseka Party once more

      in Moscow at the age of forty-nine,

And since the age of fourteen I’ve been a poet

Some people know by heart all the kinds of grasses, others

      the fishes

But I, the separations.

Some people know by heart the name of stars,

But I the longings.

I’ve lain in prisons and in great hotels,

I’ve starved and during a hunger strike I ate next to nothing.

They wanted to hand me at the age of thirty

They wanted to give me amnesty at the age of forty-eight

And they gave it

I spend half a year in black concrete at the age of thirty-six

I flew from Prague to Havana in eighteen hours at the age of fifty-nine

I walked with a friend on the sea towards death in 1951,

I awaited death on my back with a cracked heart for four months in ‘52

I was insanely jealous of the women I loved.

I cheated on my women

I didn’t talk behind my friends backs

I drank, but I was no drunkard.

I squeezed out my money with the sweat of my brow, how lucky for me

A was ashamed for other when they connived

I lied.

I rode trains, planes cars-most people can’t ride.

I went to the opera-most people can’t go or even comprehend opera.

After the age of twenty-one I stopped going places most people go to:

Mosque, church, worship, synagogue, shrine,

But now and then had my coffee grinds read.

My writings are published in thirty or forty languages,

But not in my Turkish, they’re forbidden in my Turkey.

Still, I wasn’t struck down my cancer,

But then, it isn’t necessary to be struck down.

I’ll never have the chance to be prime minister,

But then, I’m not anxiously seeking this job

Also, I never went to war,

I never went down into the shelters in the middle of the night,

I didn’t throw myself to the grownd under the living planes,

But when I was nearly sixty I fell in love.

In short, comrades:

Although I’ m dying of grief in great Berlin

I can say that I lived decently,

And as for how much longer I’ll live

Or what things will come out of my head, I have no idea.

 LIKE KEREM

Translated by Larry Clark

     cry

        cry

           cry

     I’ m crying out

Run!

     I’m calling you

           to melt the lead

They tell me:

    “Your own voise will turn you to ash

         burning

             burning

                 like Kerem”

“There are many sufferings

But none to suffer with you

The ears

     of their hearts

                  are deaf

The air is lead heavy

I tell them:

     “Let me be ashes

          burning

              burning

                   like Kerem

For if I do not burn

      and if you do not burn

          and if we do not burn

      who else

                is here

           to dis-

               pel

               the dark-

                        ness..

The air is earth pregnant

The air is lead-heavy

     cry

          cry

               cry

      I’m crying out

Run!

     I’m calling you

          to melt the lead!

ON VICTORY

Translated by Larry Clark

     you bite your lips until they bleed

         somehow you endure the pain

Now home has turned into a scream

           a bare and pitiless scream

Now victory will be seized and ripped apart

      by hands whose mercy has run out

The interminable days

     pass with the news of victory and death

The enemy is cruel

     cunning and harsh

Our men fight to their deaths

       -however much they deserved to live-

To their deaths

        -however many die

As though they are going out

     with songs and flags

           to march on a holiday