A Sample of Turkish Poetry

My deepest acknowledgement and thanks to Gonca Pozam
for the selection of Turkish Poetry
She has made for THE MELTING POT

::::

From NAZIM HIKMET RAN(1901-1963)
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.

*****
The Blue-Eyed Giant, the Miniature
Woman and the Honeysuckle...
He was a blue-eyed giant,
He loved a miniature woman.
The woman's dream was of a miniature house
with a garden where honeysuckle grows
in a riot of colours
that sort of house.

The giant loved like a giant,
and his hands were used to such big things
that the giant could not
make the building,
could not knock on the door
of the garden where the honeysuckle grows
in a riot of colours
at that house.

He was a blue-eyed giant,
he loved a miniature woman,
a mini miniature woman.
The woman was hungry for comfort
and tired of the giant's long strides.
And bye bye off she went to the embraces of a rich dwarf
with a garden where the honeysuckle grows
in a riot of colours
that sort of house.

Now the blue-eyed giant realizes,
a giant isn't even a graveyard for love:
in the garden where the honeysuckle grows
in a riot of colours
that sort of house...

:::::

From ORHAN VELI KANIK (1914-1950)
TAIL SONG

We can't come together, our ways are different
You're a butcher's cat, I'm an alley cat
Your food comes in a tin bowl
Mine is in the lion's mouth
You dream of love, I of a bone

But your way isn't easy either, brother
It's no easy job
To lick the man's hand every damn day

Translated by Bernard Lewis (1982)
*****
THERE MUST BE SOMETHING

Is the sea as beautiful as this every day?
Does the sky look like this all the time?
Is this furniture, this window
always as lovely as this?

No
by God no,
There must be something behind this somewhere.


Translated by Bernard Lewis (1982)