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