THE EPIC OF TURKISH INDEPENDENCE WAR
By : Nazým Hikmet
From : Persea Series of Poetry in Translation
Translated by : Randy Blassing and Mutlu Konuk
" They who are numberless
like ants in the earth fish in the sea
birds in the air, who are cowardly
brave
ignorant
wise
and childlike,
and who destroy
and create,
our epic cells only of their adventures.
They who fall for the traitor's lie
and drop their banner on the ground
and leaving the field co the enemy
run inside their houses,
and they who pull their knives on the renegade and who laugh like a green tree
and cry without ceremony,
and who swear like hell,
our epic cells only of their adventures.
The destiny
of iron
coal
and sugar,
of red copper
and textiles
and love. and cruelty and life
and all the branches of industry
and the sky
and the desert
and the blue ocean,
of sad riverbeds,
and of plowed earth and cities
will be changed one morning,
one morning when, at the edge of darkness,
pushing against the earth with their heavy hands,
they stand up.
They are the ones
who inspire the brightest shapes in the most knowing mirrors.
In this century they were victorious, they were defeated.
Many things have been said about them,
and about them
it was said
they have nothing to lose but their chains.' "
" `THE YEARS 1918 AND ' 19 ,
AND THE STORY OF BLACK SNAKE.' "
" `We saw fire,
we saw betrayal,
and with burning eyes
we stopped here.
Cities fell one after another:
Istanbul (October-November 1918),
Izmir (May 1919),
and Manisa, Menemen, Aydin, and Akhisar
(between mid-May
and mid-June-
the time for cutting tobacco,
when the barley has been harvested
and the wheat lies ahead).. .
Adana
Antep
Urfa
and Marash
fell
fighting. . .
The people of Antep are fighters.
They can hit a flying crane in the eye,
a running rabbit in its hind leg.
And on their Arabian horses
they sit tall and slim as young green cypresses.
Antep is a hot
hard place.
The people of Antep are fighters,
the people of Antep are brave.
Black Snake,
before he became Black Snake,
worked in one of the Antep villages.
Maybe he had a good life,
maybe not.
(They didn't leave him time to think about it.)
He lived like a field mouse,
scared as a field mouse.
"Bravery" comes with land, guns, and horses.
He didn't have any horses, guns, or land. Black Snake
had the same twig-thin neck
and the same big head
before he became Black Snake...
When the heathens entered Antep,
the people of Antep
flushed him out
of the pistachio tree
where he'd hidden in fear.
They put a horse under him
and a Mauser
in his hand.
Antep is a hard place.
Green lizards
on red rocks.
And hot clouds pacing the sky,
back and forth. . .
The heathens held the hills.
They had artillery.
The people of Antep
were hemmed in on the flat plain.
The heathens' shrapnel fell like rain.
It dug up the earth by the roots.
The heathens held the hills.
The blood of Antep flowed.
Black Snake
took cover behind a rosebush
before he became Black Snake.
The bush was so scrawny,
and his head so big and his fear so great,
that he lay flat on his belly
with his gun still empty...
Antep is a hot
hard place.
The people of Antep are fighters,
the people of Antep are brave.
But the heathens had artillery.
Nothing could be done, it was fate:
the people of Antep would have to surrender
the flat plain to the heathens.
Before he became Black Snake,
Black Snake didn't really care
if the heathens held Antep till doomsday.
Because he had never been taught to think.
He lived on the earth like a field mouse,
scared as a field mouse.
His cover was a rosebush.
He was lying under the rosebush, flat on his belly,
when behind a white rock
a black snake
raised its head-
skin all spangled,
eyes fire-red,
tongue forked.
Suddenly a bullet
tore off its head.
The snake collapsed.
Black Snake,
before he became Black Snake,
saw the black snake's end
and shouted out
the first thought of his life:
"Take heed, mad heart-
Death found the black snake behind the white rock
and will find you out even inside a steel box..."
And he who'd lived like a field mouse,
scared as a field mouse,
sprang into action.
The people of Antep were awed
and quickly fell in behind him.
They made mincemeat of the heathens in the hills.
And he who'd lived like a field mouse
scared as a field mouse,
became "Black Snake."
This is how we heard it.
And we put the story of Black Snake,
who headed a guerrilla band for years,
and the people of Antep
and the city of Antep
in the first book of our epic exactly as we heard it. . .' "
" AUGUST 1922 and
THE STORY OF OUR WOMEN
and
THE ORDERS OF THE 6TH OF AUGUST.
The ox carts rolled under the moon.
The ox carts rolled beyond Akshehir toward Afyon. But the earth was so endless
and the mountains so far in the distance,
it seemed they'd never reach
their destination.
The ox carts advanced on solid oak wheels,
the first wheels that ever turned
under the moon.
The oxen belonged to a world
in miniature,
tiny and dwarfed
under the moon,
and the light played on their sickly broken horns,
and the earth flowed
under their feet,
earth
and more earth.
The night was brighc and warm,
and in their wooden beds on the ox carts
the dark-blue bombshells were stark-naked.
And the women
hid their glances from each other
as they eyed the dead oxen
and wheels from past convoys. .
And the women,
our women
with their awesome, sacred hands,
pointed little chins, and big eyes,
our mochers, lovers, wives,
who die without ever having lived,
who get fed at our tables
after the oxen,
who we abduct and carry off to the hills
and go to prison for ,
who harvest grain, cut tobacco, chop wood, and barter in the ,
markets,
who we harness to our plows,
and who with their bells and undulant heavy hips
surrender to us in sheepfolds
in the gleam of knives stuck in the ground-
the women,
our women,
walked under the moon now
behind the ox carts and shells
with the same ease
and accustomed weariness of women
hauling amber-eared sheaves to the threshing place.
And scrawny-necked children
slepc on the steel of 15-cm. shrapnel shells.
And the ox carts advanced under the moon
beyond Akshehir coward Afyon.
The orders were issued on the 6th of August.
The First and Second Armies, with their detachments,
ox carts, and cavalry regiments,
moved into position.
98,956 guns
325 cannons
5 airplanes
2800+ machine guns
2500+ swords
and 186,326 bright human hearts,
plus twice that many eyes, ears, arms, and legs,
were on the march in the night.
The earth in the night.
The wind in the night.
Remembering and beyond remembering
in the night,
the people, machines, and animals
huddled together with their steel, wood, and flesh,
and finding a fearful safety
in huddling together
in silence,
they marched with tired feet
and hands caked with dirt.' "
" `THE STORY OF THE HOURS 3:30 TO 5:30 A.M. ON THE NIGHT OF AUGUST 26. . .
3:30 a.m.
The squad is positioned
on the Halimur-Ayvali line.
Corporal Ali from Izmir,
his eyes feeling around in the dark, looks at each of the squad members
as if he won't see them again:
che first soldier on the right
is blond,
the second swarthy,
and the third stuttersbut no one in the company can sing like him.
The fourth is always craving buckwheat soup.
The fifth is going to shoot the man who shot his uncle
the night he gets back to Urfa after his discharge.
The sixth,
a man with incredibly big feet,
is being sued by his brothers
for leaving his land and his ox back home
to an old refugee woman,
and the company calls him "Crazy Erzurum"
because he does sentry duty for his friends.
The seventh is Mehmet's son Osman.
He was wounded at Gallipoli, Inonu, and Sakarya,
and he can take a good many more wounds
without batting an eye
and still be standing.
The eighth,
Ibrahim,
wouldn't be so afraid
if his ivory teeth didn't chatter so.
And Corporal Ali from Izmir knows
that rabbits don't run out of fear-
they're scared because they run.
4:30 a.m.
The environs of Sandikli.
· The villages.
A cavalryman with a drooping black mustache
stands beside his horse under a plane tree.
The Chukurova horse
foams at the bit,
its tail lashing the dark,
its knees bleeding.
The men, swords, and horses
of the Fourth Company of the Second Cavalry Division
sniff the air.
A cock crows in a village behind them.
And the cavalryman with the drooping black mustache
covers his face with his hand.
There's another rooster in enemy territory beyond the mountains ,
a milk-white Denizli rooster with an axe-shaped comb:
the heathens probably cut it up long ago
and used it for soup...
5:30 a.m.
The final offensive begins with dawn
and the fire of artillery. .
And then.
Then all the enemy's forward defenses fell.
And then.
Then we surrounded the total enemy force
near Aslihanlar
on the 30th of August.
Then the enemy's armed forces were annihilated.
Then on the 3lst of August in 1922,
as our armies marched toward Izmir,
Crazy Erzurum
was hit by sniper fire.
He dropped to the ground
and felt the earth between his shoulder blades.
He looked up
and away.
His eyes burned with surprise.
His shoes lay on their backs side by side,
bigger than ever.
And left behind by friends who jumped over them and walked on,
his shoes gazed at the sunny sky
a long time,
thinking about an old refugee woman. And then.
Then they shuddered and jerked apart, and as Crazy Erzurum died of his grief,
they turned their faces to the earth.' "
poetry europe series
The swallow press Inc.
Poet : Nazým Hikmet
Translated by : Taner Baybars
THE GIANT WITH BLUE EYES,
A SMALL WOMAN AND HONEYSUCKLE
He was a giant with blue eyes,
loved a woman, tiny, petite. Her fantasy was a tiny house
with a garden
honeysuckle with marbled leaves honeysuckle of the house.
He loved as a giant would. His hands had been created
for such gigantic tasks
that he couldn't build
a tiny house,
he couldn't knock on the tiny door
of the house
with a garden,
honeysuckle with marbled leaves, honeysuckle in the garden.
He was a giant with blue eyes,
loved a woman, tiny, petite. She was mini mini minikin.
She became hungry for comfort
wasted herself for the giant's sake but said, `fare thee well' to the giant
one day and went to the embraces of a rich dwarf
who had a house with honeysuckle
in the garden,
marbled leaves.
And now the giant has realised, the house with a garden
of honeysuckle
with marbled leaves cannot become even a grave for a giant's love.
ABOUT DEATH
Welcome, dear friends, please be seated, you've brought peace with you.
I know
you stole into my cell
through the window when I was asleep,
without
knocking over the thin-necked medicine bottle
nor the little red box.
Brightness of stars on your faces, arm in arm you stood above my head.
But how strange :
I thought you were all dead. And since I don't believe in God
or in an after-life, `What a pity,' I'd say
`I'll never be able to offer them again a pinch of tobacco.'
How strange
I thought you were all dead.
You stole into my cell through the window.
Be seated dear friends
you've brought peace with you.
Osman's son Hashim
why look at me like that? Didn't you die, brother
while loading coal on an American cargo.
Didn't you fall down to the bottom
a coal basket on your back
The winch brought out your corpse, and even before the `great pause'*
(* Refers to an abortive general strike in 1931.)
your head was so wet with your own red blood.
How painfully you must have suffered.
Do not remain standing, friends, please be seated.
I thought you were all dead.
You stole into my cell through the window,
brightness of stars on your faces.
Welcome, friends, you've brought peace with you.
Hail to you Yakup
from the village of Kayalar !
Were you not buried in a cemetery
without trees
on a very hot afternoon
leaving the hunger and the ague
to your children ?
It seems you didn't really die.
And you, my writer friend,
Ahmet Jemil ?
I saw your coffin
with my own eyes
lowered down into a grave,
and frankly, I thought the coffin
was a little short. . .
Oh, leave that bottle alone, Ahmet Jemil.
You haven't given up your old habits.
It's only medicine
it's not raki !
To be able to earn a shilling a day,
to forget the world in your loneliness
how you used to drink !
I thought you were all dead.
Now you stand above my head arm in arm.
Please be seated my dear friends,
you've brought peace with you.
A Persian poet has said,
`Death is just
hits the poor and the rich alike.'
Why are you surprised Osman's son Hashim?
Or haven't you ever heard
of a rich shah dying
at the bottom of a cargo
under a basket of coal?
The Persian poet says,
`Death is just.'
Yakup, my dear chap, how well you laugh.
Never saw you laugh like that
when you were still about. A Persian poet, Death. . . just
leave that bottle alone, Ahmet Jemil.
Friends, your anger seems to be in vain.
I know :
For death to be just
Life must be just
as well.
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