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  #1  
Old 10-11-2007, 05:38 AM
Popinjay Popinjay is offline
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Default Things I Didn\'t Know I Loved

by Nazim Hikmet (enjoy)

it's 1962 March 28th
I'm sitting by the window on the Prague-Berlin train
night is falling
I never new I liked
night descending like a tired bird on a smoky wet plain
I don't like
comparing nightfall to a tired bird

I didn't know I loved the earth
can someone who hasn't worked the earth love it
I've never worked the earth
it must be my only platonic love

and here I've loved rivers all this time
whether motionless like this they curl skirting the hills
European hills crowned with chateaus
or whether stretched out flat as far as the eye can see
I know you can't wash in the same river even once
I know the river will bring new lights you'll never see
I know we live slightly longer than a horse but not nearly
as long as a crow
I know this has troubled people before
and will trouble those after me
I know all this has been said a thousand times before
and will be said after me

I didn't know I loved the sky
cloudy or clear
the blue vault Andrei studied on his back at Borodino
in prison I translated both volumes of War and Peace into
Turkish
I hear voices
not from the blue vault but from the yard
the guards are beating someone again

I didn't know I loved trees
bare beeches near Moscow in Peredelkino
they come upon me in winter noble and modest
beeches are Russian the way poplars are Turkish
"the poplars of Izmir
losing their leaves...
they call me The Knife...
lover like a young tree...
I blow stately mansions sky-high"
in the Ilgaz woods in 1920 I tied an embroidered linen
handkerchief to a pine bough for luck

I never knew I loved roads
even the asphalt kind
Vera's behind the wheel we're driving from Moscow to
the Crimea Koktebel
formerly "Goktepé ili" in Turkish
the two of us inside a closed box
the world flows past on both sides distant and mute
I was never so close to anyone in my life
bandits stopped me on the red road between Bolu and
Geredé when I was eighteen
apart from my life I didn't have anything in the wagon
they could take
and at eighteen our lives are what we value least
I've written this somewhere before
wading through a dark muddy street I'm going to the
shadow play Ramazan night
a paper lantern leading the way
maybe nothing like this ever happened
maybe I read it somewhere an eight-year-old boy going
to the shadow play Ramazan night in Istanbul holding
his grandfather's hand
his grandfather has on a fez and is wearing the fur coat
with a sable collar over his robe
and there is a lantern in the negro eunuch's hand
and I can't contain myself for joy

flowers come to mind for some reason
poppies cactuses jonquils
in the jonquil garden in Kadikoy Istanbul I kissed Marika
fresh almonds on her breath
I was seventeen
my heart on a swing touched the sky
I didn't know I loved flowers
friends sent me three red carnations in prison 1948
I just remembered the stars
I didn't know I loved them too
whether I'm floored watching them from below
or whether I'm flying at their side.

I have some questions for the cosmonauts
were the stars much bigger
did they look like huge jewels on black velvet
or apricots on orange
did you feel proud to get closer to the stars
I saw color photos of the cosmos in Ogonek magazine
now don't be upset comrades but nonfigurative shall we
say or abstract well some of them looked just like
such paintings which is to say they were terribly
figurative and concrete
my heart was in my mouth looking at them
they are our endless desire to grasp things
seeing them I could even think of death and not feel
at all sad
I never knew I loved the cosmos

snow flashes in front of my eyes
both heavy wet steady snow and the dry whirling kind
I didn't know I liked snow
I never knew I loved the sun
even when setting cherry-red as now
in Istanbul too it sometimes sets in postcard colors
but you aren't about to paint it that way

I didn't know I loved the sea
and how much
except the seas of Aivazovsky

I didn't know I loved clouds
whether I'm under or up above them
whether they look like giants or shaggy white beasts

moonlight the falsest the most languid the most
petit-bourgeois strikes me
I didn't know I liked it

I didn't know I liked rain
whether it falls like a fine net or splatters against the glass
my heart leaves me tangled up in a net or trapped
inside a drop and takes off for uncharted countries
I didn't know I liked rain
but why did I suddenly discover all these passions sitting
by the window on the Prague-Berlin train
is it because I lit my sixth cigarette
one alone could kill me
is it because I'm half dead from thinking about someone
back in Moscow
her hair straw-blond eyelashes blue

the train plunges on through the pitch-black night
I never knew I liked the night pitch-black
sparks fly from the engine
I didn't know I loved sparks
I didn't know I loved so many things and I had to wait
until sixty to find it out sitting by the window on the
Prague-Berlin train watching the world disappear
as if on a journey of no return

Moscow, 19 April 1962
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  #2  
Old 10-11-2007, 05:39 AM
losingdonkey losingdonkey is offline
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Default Re: Things I Didn\'t Know I Loved

Im soooo reading that imo
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  #3  
Old 10-11-2007, 05:44 AM
Popinjay Popinjay is offline
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Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: robusting
Posts: 3,144
Default Re: Things I Didn\'t Know I Loved

[ QUOTE ]
Im soooo reading that imo

[/ QUOTE ]

not that long ffs imo. it's poetry that [censored] flows stop trying to put a spin on my thread you fox news pos
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  #4  
Old 10-11-2007, 06:07 AM
Nemesis69 Nemesis69 is offline
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Location: SPARTAAAA!
Posts: 1,129
Default Re: Things I Didn\'t Know I Loved

[ ] cliff notes
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  #5  
Old 10-11-2007, 06:08 AM
Conspire Conspire is offline
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Posts: 6,031
Default Re: Things I Didn\'t Know I Loved

I love women.
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  #6  
Old 10-11-2007, 06:09 AM
Labarde Labarde is offline
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Join Date: May 2007
Location: eating biscuits
Posts: 2,951
Default Re: Things I Didn\'t Know I Loved

[ QUOTE ]
I love women.

[/ QUOTE ]

I find that pretty hard to believe, given your posting history tbh
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