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• It's this way:
  being captured is beside the point,
  the point is not to surrender.
  • From It's This Way

• You waste the attention of your eyes,
  the glittering labour of your hands,
  and knead the dough enough for dozens of loaves
  of which you'll taste not a morsel;
  you are free to slave for others--
  you are free to make the rich richer.
  The moment you're born
  they plant around you
  mills that grind lies
  lies to last you a lifetime.
  You keep thinking in your great freedom
  a finger on your temple
  free to have a free conscience.
  Your head bent as if half-cut from the nape,
  your arms long, hanging,
  your saunter about in your great freedom:
  you're free
  with the freedom of being unemployed.
  You love your country
  as the nearest, most precious thing to you.
  But one day, for example,
  they may endorse it over to America,
  and you, too, with your great freedom--
  you have the freedom to become an air-base.
  You may proclaim that one must live
  not as a tool, a number or a link
  but as a human being--
  then at once they handcuff your wrists.
  You are free to be arrested, imprisoned
  and even hanged.
  There's neither an iron, wooden
  nor a tulle curtain
  in your life;
  there's no need to choose freedom:
  you are free.
  But this kind of freedom
  is a sad affair under the stars.
  • From A Sad State Of Freedom

• I'm twenty-seven,
  she's seventeen.
  "Blind Cupid,
  lame Cupid,
  both blind and lame Cupid
  said, Love this girl,"
  • From A Spring Piece Left In The Middle

• I've never regretted I was born too soon.
  I'm proud to be
  a child of the twentieth century.
  I'm satisfied
  to join its ranks
  on our side
  and fight for a new world...
  • From On the Twentieth Century (12 November 1941)

• My country or the stars
  Or my youth, what's farthest?
  • From In the Snowy Night Woods (10 March 1956)

• The strangest of our powers
  Is the courage to live
  Knowing that we will die,
  Knowing nothing more true.
  • From In the Snowy Night Woods (10 March 1956)

• Loneliness feels like prison.
  • From New Year's Eve (23 March 1956)

• The world's not run by governments or money
  but people rule
  a hundred years from now
  maybe
  but it will be for sure.
  • From Optimism (12 September 1957)

• Separation isn't time or distance
  it's the bridge between us
  finer than silk thread sharper than swords
  • From Separation (6 June 1960)

• Because of you, each day is a melon slice
  smelling sweetly of earth
  Because of you, all fruits reach out to me
  as if I were the sun.
  Thanks to you, I live on the honey of hope.
  You are the reason my heart beats.
  Because of you, even my loneliest nights
  smile like an Anatolian kilim on your wall.
  Should my journey end before I reach my city,
  I've rested in a rose garden thanks to you.
  Because of you I don't let death enter,
  clothed in the softest garments,
  and knocking on my door with songs
  calling me to the greatest place.
  • From Because of You (29 August 1960)

• All I wrote about us is lies
  All I wrote about us is the truth
  • From About Us (30 September 1960)

• Welcome baby
  it's your turn to live
  they're laying for you chicken pox whooping cough smallpox
  malaria TB heart disease cancer and so on
  unemployment hunger and so on
  train wrecks bus accidents plane crashes on-the-job injuries
  earthquakes floods droughts and so on
  heartbreak alcoholism and so on
  nightsticks prisons doors and so on
  they're laying for you the atom bomb and so on
  welcome baby
  it's your turn to live
  they're laying for you socialism communism and so on.
  • From Welcome (10 September 1961)

• You're my bondage and my freedom,
  my flesh burning like a naked summer night,
  you're my country.
  Hazel eyes marbled green,
  you're awesome, beautiful, and brave,
  you're my desire always just out of reach.
  • From You're

• Looking at this insolent earth,
  you hear the first battle cry of our species-
  trap it under a rock
  and together, screaming, attack
  and destroy it, as if killing a mammoth.
  • From Human Landscapes from My Country, Book Two, Section VII

• At eighteen the heart shoots like a pebble from a slingshot
  and the head doesn't sit on the shoulder.
  • From Human Landscapes from My Country, Book Two, Section VII

• At eighteen you sleep without memories.
  • From Human Landscapes from My Country, Book Two, Section VII

• At eighteen you don't think about memories,
  you tell them.
  • From Human Landscapes from My Country, Book Two, Section VII

• Today is Sunday.
  For the first time they took me out into the sun today.
  And for the first time in my life I was aghast
  that the sky is so far away
            and so blue
            and so vast
                I stood there without a motion.
  Then I sat on the ground with respectful devotion
  leaning against the white wall.
  Who cares about the waves with which I yearn to roll
  Or about strife or freedom or my wife right now.
  The soil, the sun and me...
  I feel joyful and how.
  • From Today is Sunday