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The Strangest Creature on Earth You’re like a scorpion, my brother, you live in cowardly darkness                                  like a scorpion. You’re like a sparrow, my brother, always in a sparrow’s flutter. You’re like a clam, my brother, closed like a clam, content, And you’re frightening, my brother,                                  like the mouth of an extinct volcano. Not one,          not five — unfortunately, you number millions. You’re like a sheep, my brother:                                  when the cloaked drover raises his stick,                                                   you quickly join the flock and run, almost proudly, to the slaughterhouse. I mean you’re strangest creature on earth — even stranger than the fish                        that couldn’t see the ocean for the water. And the oppression in this world                                                  is thanks to you. And if we’re hungry, tired, covered with blood, and still being crushed like grapes for our wine,                                                              the fault is yours — I can hardly bring myself to say it, but most of the fault, my dear brother, is yours. Nâzım Hikmet, 1947 English translation by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk

Hikmet thoughtfully sitting in between the prison bars. Courtesy of Samet Baysal.