The Art of Marxism: poetry

The Strangest Creature on Earth

by Nâzım Hikmet Ran

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.

1947