QuoteReplyTopic: Turkish poet Nazym Hikmet Posted: 03-Oct-2005 at 17:01
Nazym Hikmet Ran is one of the greatest Turkish poets. Below there's a biography of him and some poems of him:
One of the most important figures in 20th century Turkish literature and one of the first Turkish poets to use more or less free verse. Hikmet became during his lifetime the best-known Turkish poet in the West, and his works were translated into several languages. However, in his home country Hikmet was condemned for his commitment to Marxism, and he remained decades after his death a controversial figure. His writings were filled with social criticism and he was the only major writer to speak out against the Armenian massacres in 1915 and 1922. Hikmet proclaimed in the early 1930s that "the artist is the engineer of the human soul." He spent some 17 years in prisons and called poetry "the bloodiest of the arts." His poem 'Some Advice to Those Who Will Serve Time in Prison' reflected his will to survive.
"To think of roses and gardens inside is bad, to think of seas and mountains is good. Read and write without rest, and I also advise weaving and making mirrors." (from 'Some Advice', 1949)
Nazim Hikmet was born in Salonica, Ottoman Empire (now Thessaloniki). His father, Nazim Hikmet Bey, was a civil servant, and his mother, Aisha Dshalila, was a painter. He studied briefly at the French-language Galatasary Lyce in Istanbul and attended the Naval War School, but dropped out because of ill health. He also wrote a lampoon about the British. During the war of independence, he went to Anatolia to join Atatrk and then worked as a teacher at a school in Bolu. He studied sociology and economics at the University of Moscow (1921-28) and joined the Turkish Communist Party in the 1920s.
After his return to Turkey in 1928 without a visa Hikmet wrote articles for newspapers and periodicals, film scripts and plays. From the age of 14 he had written poems. Because of his unauthorized re-entry, he was sentenced to a prison term but pardoned in 1935 in a general amnesty. In 1938 the author was condemned to prison for 28 years and four months for anti-Nazi and anti-Franco activities. Hikmet spent the following 12 years in different prisons. During this period he married Mnevver Andac - it was his second marriage. Hikmet was released in 1950 because of international protests, and escaped in a small boat from his home country in fear of an attempt on his life. His wife and his son, Memet, were not allowed to leave the country.
After losing his Turkish citizenship, he lived in the Soviet Union and other socialist countries. In 1950 he shared with Pablo Neruda the Soviet Union's International Peace Prize. Hikmet became a Polish citizen and from 1951 lived his remaining days in Sofia, Warsaw, and finally in Moscow. In spite of his heart disease and the warnings of his doctors he also travelled in Africa, China, Cuba, and spent time in Paris, Rome, and Prague. In Moscow he married for the third time. Many of Hikmet's poems, written during the years of exile, are nostalgic. In Warsaw in 1958 he wrote about platans, "white houses" and "an autumn morning in a wine yard" - there are no wine yards in Warsaw and the city is not white. A poem about Donau from the same year brings his thoughts to Istanbul. Broken in health, he died on June 3, 1963 in Moscow, where he was buried. Just a few months before his death Hikmet had written a poem, in which he bids his farewell to his neighbors in his Moscow apartment building, and ponders over how his coffin is to be transported down from the fourth floor.
"I mean you must take living so seriously that even at seventy, for example, you will plant olives - and not so they'll be left for your children either, but because even though you fear death you don't believe it, because living, I mean, weighs heavier." (from 'On Living')
Hikmet's first poems appeared in the 1920s, but he had started to write earlier. In Moscow he saw a poem by Mayakovsky, and although he did not understand Russian, the free-flowing lines fascinated his imagination. His own passionate poetic voice Hikmet found in his twenties. In 1936 he published one of his most famous works, The Epic of Sheikh Dedreddin, which depicted a 15th century revolutionary religious leader in Anatolia. Among his later books is the five-volume MEMLEKETIMDEN INSAN MANZARALARI (1966-67), a 20,000 line epic. In his early poems Hikmet showed the influence of Mayakovsky, although he never used completely free verse. Hikmet had met the Russian writer in Moscow and worked with him at the satirical Metla theater. Typical of Hikmet's poems was change of metre and irregular use of rhymes. Hikmet combined Turkish traditional poetry with avant-gardist trends, and deeply influenced Turkish literature in the 1920s and 1930s.
As a playwright Hikmet applied the techniques of Brecht's epic theater. His Marxist-inspired dramas enjoyed success in the Soviet Union and other communist countries. Hikmet's first published play, By the Fireside (1932), was a verse drama about a poet's love. In 1932 he made a strong impact with his innovative play KAFATASI and consolidated his reputation with UNUTULAN ADAM (1935), which demonstrated the dubiousness of fame and the frequent discrepancy between one's success in the world and one's unhappiness in private life.
Other of Hikmet's dramatic works in the 1930s and 1940s includes The House of the Deceased (1932), which focuses on the greed and hypocrisy of a middle-class family. Ferhad and Sirin (wr. 1945) was based on a Persian-Turkish love legend. It was adapted into a three-act ballet and the story was filmed as a Turco-Russian co-production. IVAN IVANOVIC VAR MIYDI YOK MUYDU (1956) was written shortly after Stalin's death and attacked the cult of personality and the new hierarchy that replaced the old. The play was performed for the first time in Moscow, and was compared to Mayakovsky's The Bedbug (1928), a social satire. Sword of Damocles (1974) depicted the threat of nuclear holocaust, and SABAHAT (1977) revealed the exploitation of the hardworking people by the civic leaders.
In France and Greece, Hikmet's poetry and plays gained a wide popularity, and in 1970 he received critical praise from some prominent American poets. In Turkey the ban on Hikmet's works was lifted in 1964. A vast numbers of books and articles about the author and his work were published in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The multi-volume complete works project, started in 1968, had remained incomplete by the early 1980s. The only complete edition of his poems has appeared in Bulgaria in the 1960s.
Hikmet did not consider his theater works to be of major importance, but during the years in Moscow he met such Russian theater geniuses as Stanislavsky, Meyerhold, Vachtangov and Tairov. The main themes in his plays are loneliness, betrayal and the evils of capitalism. Also many of his poems have been dramatized and staged. In 1972 Paris's Thtre de la Libert offered a production called Lgendes Venir, which was a mixture of the author's poems and Aziz Nesin's short stories. Hikmet's novels do not compare in quality to his poetry and plays. His collection of tales, SEWVDALI BULUT (1968), and his anthology of newspaper columns, IT RR KERVAN YRR (1965), represent his better production. Hikmet's three volumes of collected letters, posthumously published, reveal the author as a master letter writer.
For further reading:Encyclopedia of World Literature in the 20th Century, ed. by Steven R. Serafin (1999, vol. 2); Modern Turkish Poetry, ed. by Feyyaz Kayacan Fergar (1992); Contemporary Turkish Writers by Louis Mitler (1988); McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of World Drama, ed. by Stanley Hochman (1984); Contemporary Turkish Literature, ed. by Talat S. Halman (1982); The Poetry of Nazim Hikmet by M. Dohan (1975, in Lotus: Afro-Asian Writing, 26) - Turkin kirjallisuus, toim. Mervi Nousiainen (1997) - Other famous Turkish writers: Yashar Kemal, Melih Cevdet Anday, Haldun Taner, Aziz Nesin, Oktay Akbal, Fakir Baykurt. - Suom.: Hikmetilt on mys suomenettu runovalikoima Punainen omena (1972) ja Puut kasvavat viel (1978). - For futher information:Nazim Hikmet - (web site created by Saime Gksu and Edward Timms)
Selected works:
835 SATUR, 1929
JOKOND ILE SI-YA-U, 1929
VARAN 3, 1930
SESINI KAYBEDEN SEHIR, 1931
OCAKBASI, 1932 - By the Fireside (play)
KAFATASI, 1932 - The Skull (play)
BIR L EVI, 1932 - The House of the Deceased (play)
GECE GELEN TELGRAF, 1932
BENERCI KENDINI NIIN LDRD, 1932
UNUTULAN ADAM, 1933 - THE FORGOTTEN MAN (play)
PORTRELER, 1935
TARANTA BABU'YA MEKTUPLAR, 1935
SEYH BEDREDDIN DESTANI, 1936 - The Epic of Sheik Bedreddin
FERHAD AND SIRIN, 1945
FATMA, ALI VE BASKALARI, 1952 - Ali, Fatima and Others (play)
Poems by Nazim Hikmet, 1954
IVAN IVANOVI VAR MIYDI YOK MUYDU?, 1955 - Was There and Ivan Ivanovich or Not? (play)
The hair falling on your forehead suddenly lifted. Suddenly something stirred on the ground. The trees are whispering in the dark. Your bare arms will be cold.
Far off where we can't see, the moon must be rising. It hasn't reached us yet, slipping through the leaves to light up your shoulder. But I know a wind comes up with the moon. The trees are whispering. Your bare arms will be cold.
From above, from the branches lost in the dark, something dropped at your feet. You moved closer to me. Under my hand your bare flesh is like the fuzzy skin of a fruit. Neither a song of the heart nor "common sense"-- before the trees, birds, and insects, my hand on my wife's flesh is thinking. Tonight my hand can't read or write. Neither loving nor unloving... It's the tongue of a leopard at a spring, a grape leaf, a wolf's paw. To move, breathe, eat, drink. My hand is like a seed splitting open underground. Neither a song of the heart nor "common sense," neither loving nor unloving. My hand thinking on my wife's flesh is the hand of the first man. Like a root that finds water underground, it says to me: "To eat, drink, cold, hot, struggle, smell, color-- not to live in order to die but to die to live..."
And now as red female hair blows across my face, as something stirs on the ground, as the trees whisper in the dark, and as the moon rises far off where we can't see, my hand on my wife's flesh before the trees, birds, and insects, I want the right of life, of the leopard at the spring, of the seed splitting open-- I want the right of the first man.
I love you like dipping bread into salt and eating Like waking up at night with high fever and drinking water, with the tap in my mouth Like unwrapping the heavy box from the postman with no clue what it is fluttering, happy, doubtful I love you like flying over the sea in a plane for the first time Like something moves inside me when it gets dark softly in Istanbul I love you Like thanking God that we live.
I think of you and I feel the scent of my mother my mother, the most beautiful of all.
You are on the carousel of the festival inside me you hover around, your skirt and your hair flying Mere seconds between finding your beautiful face and losing it.
What is the reason, why do I remember you like a wound on my heart what is the reason that I hear your voice when you are so far and I can't help getting up with excitement?
I kneel down and look at your hands I want to touch your hands but I can't you are behind a glass. Sweetheart, I am a bewildered spectator of the drama that I am playing in my twilight.
My brothers, Forgive me if I'm unable to say honestly and straightforwardly all that I would like to say to you I'm drunk, my head is light, it spins, not from raki but from hunger. My brothers, I'm European, I'm Asian, I'm American, In this month of May I'm not in jail or on a hunger strike, But lying at night in a meadow With your eyes as near to mine as the stars And your hands in mine as a single hand like the hand of my mother like the hand of my helpmate like the hand of life. My brothers, You, at least, have never abandoned me, Not me or my country or my people. I know that you love me and love what's ours As I love you and love what's yours. And for this I thank you, my brothers, I thank you. My brothers, I have no intention of dying. And if I am killed I know I'll go on living in your thoughts. I'll live in the lines of Aragon- in every line that describes the coming of beautiful days- And in the pigeons of Picasso, And in the folksongs of Robson... And more beautiful than anything else more triumphant than anything else I'll live in the jubilant laughter of a comrade on strike day in the port of Marseilles. My brothers, Since you really wish me to talk again, I'm so happy, so happy, that I spurt the words out!
I want to die before you. Do you think that who passes later will find who's gone before? I don't think so. You'd better have me burned, and put me on the stove in your room in a jar. The jar shall be made of glass, transparent, white glass so that you can see me inside... You see my sacrifice: I renounced from being part of the earth, I renounced from being a flower to be able to stay with you. And I am becoming dust, to live with you. Later, when you also die, you'll come to my jar. And we'll live there together your ash in my ash, until a careless bride or an unfaithful grandson throws us out of there... But we until that time will mix with each other so much that even in the garbage we are thrown into our grains will fall side by side. We will dive into the soil together. And one day, if a wild flower feeds from this piece of soil and blossoms above its body, definitely there will be two flowers: one is you one is me. I don't think of death yet. I will give birth to a child. Life is flooding from me. My blood is boiling. I will live, but long, very long, but with you. Death doesn't scare me either. But I find our way of funeral rather unlikable. Until I die, I think this will get better. Is there a hope you'll get out of prison these days? A voice in me says: maybe.
Remembering you is good your hand forgotten upon a blue dress your hair with the grave softness of the earth of my beloved Istanbul. This joy of loving you is like a second person inside me... The smell of geranium leaves on your fingertips warm and comforting The invitation of your flesh a hot intense darkness scored by vivid red lines...
Remembering you is good or writing about you as I lie on my back in prison thinking of such and such a day at such and such a place of some words you said not of the words so much but of the world and you within them...
Remembering you is good I must carve some things for you again a jewel box a ring I must weave a length of thin silk then jump up and clutching the window bars shout what I have written for you to the innocent blue of freedom.
Remembering you is good in prison amid the news of victory and death as my fortieth year passes... 1942
At this late hour on this autumn night I am filled with your words. Eternal like time like matter Naked like an eye Heavy like a hand Words which sparkle like stars. Your words came to me from your heart your head your body Your words delivered you mother woman comrade Your words were sad they were bitter hopeful heroic Your words were human. September 20, 1945
Our son is sick his father in prison your heavy head fallen in your tired palms the laughter drained from your golden eyes.
People will surely carry people on to sunnier days our son will get well his father out of prison your golden eyes will fill with laughter once more... Our fate is the world's fate. September 21, 1945
Reading books you're there inside me Hearing songs you're inside me Eating my bread you're sitting before me Or at my work you're before me. You're my 'silent partner' everywhere. Although we cannot speak Although we cannot hear each other's voices. You're my widow of eight years. September 22, 1945
What is she doing now this second, this very second? Is she at home, outside, working, lying down, on her feet? could she be raising her arm? O my love! how this movement bares her strong white wrist! What is she doing now this second, this very second? Perhaps she has a kitten on her lap, she's petting it. Or, perhaps she's walking, about to step. O those feet I cherish, those feet which bring her to me on tip-toe when days are dark... And what is she thinking about, of me? Or, who knows, why the beans take so long to cook? Or, even, why the majority of men are so miserable? What is she thinking now this second, this very second? September 23, 1945
The loveliest sea is the sea not yet traveled The loveliest child is the child not yet born Our loveliest days are those we have not yet lived through. And the loveliest word I would say to you is the word that I have not yet said. September 24, 1945
Squatting, I look at the earth I look at the grasses I look at the insects I look at the deep blue flowers opening from stems. I look at you, my love, You are like the spring earth. Stretched out on my back, I see the sky I see the tree's branches I see the storks flying I see you, my love, You are like the spring sky. Lighting a night fire, I touch the fire I touch the water I touch the cloth I touch the silver I touch you, my love You are the fire lit beneath the stars. Inside of people, I love people I love action I love thinking I love my struggle I love you, my love, You are a person inside my struggle. 1945
9 PM horns blare in the yard soon they will close the cell doors. This prison term is longer than the others nearly eight years now... Living is a labor of hope, my love, living is a serious business like loving you... September 25, 1945
They enslaved us threw us in prison me inside the walls you outside the walls. But that is nothing, the true evil is that knowingly or unknowingly a man carries the prison inside himself... Most of the men fallen to this state are honorable hard-working good men, and deserve to be loved as I love you. September 26, 1945
Thinking of you is a beautiful thing a hopeful thing a thing like hearing the most beautiful song from the world's most beautiful voice... But hope no longer is enough for me I no longer want to hear the song— I want to sing it... September 30, 1945
Above the mountain there is a cloud swollen with sun above the mountain. Another day passed without you with and without the world another day. They will open soon in bursts of red nightflowers will open in bursts of red. Soundless bold wings carry our separation that separation like an exile from the homeland... October 1, 1945
The wind flows by no cherry branch moves with the same wind twice. Birds chatter in the trees: wings poised for flight. A closed door: waiting to be thrown open. I want you I want life to be as lovely and friendly and good as you. I know this feast of misery is not yet finished. But it will be finished... October 2, 1945
Both of us know, my love, they taught us the hunger, the shivering, the withering exhaustion, the separation from each other. Still, we have not been forced to kill nor tasted the moment of being killed.
Both of us know, my love, we can teach them to fight for our people to love each day a little stronger a little more from our souls... October 5, 1945
Clouds pass, heavy and swollen with news, Crushing in my fist the letter that hasn't come yet, Tears in the corners of my eyes, goodbyes said to the endless earth, And I want to shout: Piraye! Pi-ra-ye! October 6, 1945
At night, the wind carries the cries of men across the open seas At night, there is danger still in straying across the open seas. This field, unplowed for six years, still bears the tracks of tank treads This winter, the snow will cover these untouched tracks of tank treads. Ah, my dearest, the antennas are lying again so that the merchants of sweat can close with 100% profits. But those who have returned from Azrail's feast have returned with their decisions made... October 7, 1945
I've become unbearable again sleepless, petty, cross. You can see I'm working one day like a blasphemous shrew like a raging animal. And then I'm on my back the next day from morning to evening a lazy folksong in my mouth like a cigarette that has gone out. The hate and the pity I feel for myself hold me totally in their grasp. I've become unbearable again sleepless, petty, cross. As always, I'm unfair. Without any reason or any possibility of one, and even though it's a vile humiliation I can't help it, I'm jealous. Forgive me... October 8, 1945
Last night I had a dream: You were sitting at my feet, You raised your head, turned Your enormous golden eyes to me, And asked a question, Your wet lips opened and closed, But I didn't hear your voice. The hour struck as though somewhere There was good news in the night. Whispers of endlessness in the air, My canary in its red cage Singing the Song of Memo. The small cracking sounds of seeds Pushing and lifting the earth, And the just and triumphant humming Of some gathering comes to my ear. Your wet lips still opened and closed, But I didn't hear your voice. I awoke in a nervous uncertainty. I had fallen asleep over my book, it seems, But I am wondering now Whether all those voices were not your voice? October 9, 1945
Looking in your eyes I am drunk with the smell of warm earth lost in a wheat field among the stalks... Your eyes are like an eternal substance, changing endlessly pits without bottom, with flashes of green... whose secret is given up a little each day but never completely surrendered. October 10, 1945
When I leave the prison to meet my death And when we turn for the last time to look at the city, We shall be able to say these words, my love: 'Though you never made our hearts rejoice, we worked hard as we could thinking we could make you happy. Roads to happiness lead on, as life goes on. We are content, our hearts are satisfied with the bread we earned; Our eyes bear the afflictions of separation from your light. See, we have come and now we are going. May you be happy, city of Aleppo...' October 18, 1945
We are one half of an apple the other half is this enormous world We are one half of an apple the other half is our people You are one half of an apple I am the other half we are two... October 27, 1945
The smell rises from the geraniums The waves hum on the seas Autumn is here with its full clouds And intelligent earth...
My love, the year has reached its maturity. It seems that we have known Perhaps a thousand years' worth of life, But we are still wide-eyed children Running hand in hand in the sun... October 28, 1945
Forget the flowering almond trees. Why think of that which cannot be regained? Dry your wet hair in the sun, Your hair with the smell of ripe fruit, That shines, heavy and damp, with redness. My love, my love, the season is autumn... November 5, 1945
From above the roofs of my distant city, passing the tip of the Marmara sea, flying over the autumn earth Came your voice— moist and mature— For three minutes. Then, the telephone was closed down like pitch darkness... November 8, 1945
The last southwinds have begun to blow warm and humming like blood pouring from a vein. I listen to the weather: it's pulse is slowing down. There is snow on Olympia's peak. On the Kirezli plateau the bears with great charm and majesty lie down on the chestnut leaves to sleep. The poplars on the plain undress. Silkworm eggs will be taken soon to their winter shelter. Autumn is about to end, The earth to enter its pregnant sleep. And we will pass again one more winter with this great rage inside, warming ourselves in the fire of our sacred hope... November 12, 1945
They say it doesn't allow description— the misery of Istanbul. They say the people are crushed by hunger. They say tuberculosis lurks everywhere. And the young girls, they say, are taken in the ruins and in theater loges.
This black news comes from my distant city, from the city of hard-working honest people, from the real Istanbul, My love, from the city which is your home, which I carry on my back in a bag wherever I am exiled wherever I am in prison Which I bear in my heart like the grieving for a lost child like your image which I hold in my eyes... November 13, 1945
Although you'll find carnations still in vases now and then, seeds are being scattered in the fields plowed up long ago for planting and olives, stuffed with oil, are being picked now. On one side we're moving into winter on another the earth is being opened for the seedlings of spring. As for me filled with longing and heavy with impatience for great travels, I am lying in Bursa like a ship at anchor... November 20, 1945
Take out from your chest the dress you wore the first time I saw you and dress up like the spring trees. Put in your hair the carnation I am sending you from prison, Lift your broad forehead white and creased with those lines that should be kissed, And by no means look tired or worried on such a day. The wife of Nazim Hikmet must be beautiful like the flag of a rebellion on such a day! December 4, 1945
A hole wore through the ship's hull the slaves cut to pieces their chains the wind from the northeast blew about to hurl the ship upon the rocks. This world this pirate ship will sink. Whatever happens it will sink. And we will create a free, spacious, hopeful world like your face my Piraye... December 5, 1945
They are the enemies of hope, my love, the enemies of a life that grows and develops of a tree that bears fruit of water that flows. Because death is stamped on their foreheads— their teeth rot their flesh decays— They'll disappear and never come back. And surely, my love, surely this lovely country of mine will be a garden of brothers without masters or slaves... December 6, 1945
Enemy to Receb the towel-maker in Bursa Enemy to Hasan the fitter in Karabük factory Enemy to the woman Hatçe the village peasant Enemy to Süleyman the worker Enemy to me Enemy to you Enemy to thinking men. My love, they are the enemy of the country which houses them. December 7, 1945
On the plain trees burn in a final effort spangles of gold copper brass and bronze. Hooves of oxen slowly, softly two by two sink in dampened earth. And the mountains are soaked and gray submerged in mist... It's finished. Perhaps this day is all that is left of autumn. And now the wild geese wing past heading for Iznik lake. Something cool in the air like the smell of soot in the air the smell of snow in the air... Now to be outside! Now to charge a horse straight for the mountains! 'But you don't know how to ride,' you'll say. Don't laugh at me and don't be jealous This new love of nature I've acquired in prison I love almost but not as much as I love you... And both of you so far away... December 12, 1945
Snow suddenly set in at night morning began with crows scattering from white branches. Winter on the Bursa plain past the eye's reaching recalling endlessness.
My love, the season burst through to change after continuous struggle, And proud, working hard beneath the snow Life still pushing on and up... December 13, 1945
Damn, the winter has come down hard. Who knows what's happened to you and to my Istanbul. Have you coal? Can you get wood? Stuff newspaper in the window cracks, and go to bed early. There's nothing in the house to sell, I know... Even when we shiver half hungry half full Even in this we are in the majority in our country in our city in the world. December 14, 1945
Since I've been in jail the world has turned around the sun ten times And if you ask the earth, it will say: 'It's not worth mentioning, a microscopic time.' And if you ask me, I will say: 'It's ten years of my life.' I had a pencil the year I came to jail. It wore out in a week from writing. And if you ask the pencil, it will say: 'A whole life.' And if you ask me, I will say: 'It's nothing, a mere week.' Osman who was jailed for murder completed a seven-year stretch and left since I've been in jail. He wandered around outside for a while, and then got jailed again for smuggling. He served a six-month term and left again, and yesterday a letter came saying he's married and a child will be born in the spring. Now they're ten years old the children who fell from their mothers' womb that year I came to jail, And the colts of that year who had long thin shaky legs have long since become docile broad-rumped mares. But the olive shoots are still shoots and they're still children. New squares have opened up in my distant city since I've been in jail. And our family is living in a house I've never seen on a street I don't know. The bread was pure white, like cotton, the year I came to jail. Later it was rationed out, And we here on the inside beat one another for a piece of black crust the size of a fist. Now it's free again, But brown and tasteless. The year I came to jail The Second One had just begun. The ovens in Dachau Camp were not yet lit, The atom bomb was not yet hurled upon Hiroshima. Time flowed like the blood of a child with his throat cut. Later that chapter was officially closed, Now American dollars are talking about a Third. But in spite of everything, the days have brightened since I've been in jail, And about half of them 'put their heavy hands on the pavement and on the edge of darkness straightened up.' Since I've been in jail the world has turned around the sun ten times. And again I repeat with the same passion what I wrote for them the year I came to jail: 'They whose number is as great as ants on the earth fish in the water birds in the sky are fearful and brave ignorant and learned and they are children, And they who destroy and create it is only their adventure in these songs.' And for the rest, for example, my lying here for ten years, it's nothing...
Mary didn't give birth to God. Mary isn't the mother of God. Mary is one mother among many mothers. Mary gave birth to a son, a son among many sons. That's why Mary is so beautiful in all the pictures of her. That's why Mary's son is so close to us, like our own sons. The faces of our women are the book of our pains. Our pains, our faults and the blood we shed carve scars on the faces of our women like plows. And our joys are reflected in the eyes of women like the dawns glowing on the lakes. Our imaginations are on the faces of women we love. Whether we see them or not, they are before us, closest to our realities and furthest.
A young Japanese fisherman was killed by a cloud at sea. I heard this song from his friends, one lurid yellow evening on the Pacific.
Those who eat the fish we caught, die. Those who touch our hands, die, This ship is a black coffin, you'll die if you come up the gangplank.
Those who eat the fish we caught, die, not straight away, but slowly, slowly their flesh rots, falls off. Those who eat the fish we caught, die.
Those who touch our hands, die. Our loyal, hardworking hands washed by salt and sun. Those who touch our hands, die, not straight away, but slowly, slowly their flesh rots, falls off. Those who touch our hands, die.
Almond Eyes, forget me. This ship is a black coffin, you'll die if you come up the gangplank. The cloud has passed over us.
Almond Eyes, forget me. Don't hug me my darling, you'll catch death from me. Almond Eyes, forget me.
This ship is a black coffin. Almond Eyes, forget me. The child you have from me will be rotten from a rotten egg. This ship is a black coffin. This sea is a dead sea. Human beings, where are you? Where are you?
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