That’s how it goes, Laz Ismail

That’s how it goes, Laz Ismail

Nazım Hikmet

a poem

Translated by Evrim Emir-Sayers and David Selim Sayers

I’m inside the rising light
My hands voracious, the world so sweet.

My eyes feast on the trees
The trees, so hopeful, so green.

A sunny path winds behind the mulberry groves
I’m by the infirmary window, in jail.

I don’t catch the scent of the drugs,
Somewhere, carnations must be in bloom.

That’s how it goes, Laz Ismail,
the problem is not falling captive,
it’s how to avoid surrender!

Bursa Prison, 1948

For Aleksandra Mostovaja and Mortaza Behboudi

EVRIM EMIR-SAYERS is a philosophy scholar who researches, teaches, writes, edits, and translates out of Paris, France. DAVID SELIM SAYERS is a scholar of Ottoman and Turkish Studies with a focus on history and literature. They are both co-founders and core faculty members of the Paris Institute for Critical Thinking (PICT).

evrim@parisinstitute.org; david@parisinstitute.org

dePICTions volume 4 (2024): Victimhood