The Art of Marxism: poetry

The Blue-Eyed Giant, the Miniature

by Nāzım Hikmet Ran


He was a blue-eyed giant,
He loved a miniature woman.
The woman's dream was of a miniature house
   with a garden where honeysuckle grows
       in a riot of colours
           that sort of house.

The giant loved like a giant,
and his hands were used to such big things
   that the giant could not
make the building,
   could not knock on the door
of the garden where the honeysuckle grows
    in a riot of colours
        at that house.

He was a blue-eyed giant,
He loved a miniature woman,
a mini miniature woman.
The woman was hungry for comfort
    and tired of the giant's long strides.
And bye bye off she went to the embraces of a rich dwarf
with a garden where the honeysuckle grows
   in a riot of colours
       that sort of house.

Now the blue-eyed giant realizes,
a giant isn't even a graveyard for love:
in the garden where the honeysuckle grows
    in a riot of colours
        that sort of house...