THE PARADE OF LOVE

he first one was that slender, reedy girl,
I think now she's the wife of a merchant.
I wonder how fat she's grown.
But still I'd like to see her very much.
It isn't easy, first love.

........................... goes up
......................... we stood in the street
......................... even though
........... our names were written side by side on the walls
........................... in the fire.

The third was Miss Munevver, she was older than me,
As I wrote and wrote and tossed letters into her garden
She was in stitches reading them.
Remembering those letters,
I feel ashamed, as though it were today.

The fourth was wild.
She used to tell me dirty stories.
One day she undressed in front of me.
Years have passed, I still can't forget it.
So many times it entered my dreams.

Let's skip the fifth and come to the sixth.
Her name was Nurunnisa.
Oh, my beauty,
Oh, my brunette,
Oh, my lovely, my lovely
Nurunnisa!

The seventh was Aliye, a society woman,
But I couldn't appreciate her very much;
Like all society women
Everything depended on earrings and fur coats.

The eighth was more or less the same shit;
Look for honor in somebody else's wife,
But if asked of you to throw a tantrum,
Lies, fits;
Lying was second nature to her.

The name of the ninth was Ayten.
She was a belly dancer in a bar;
While working she was the slave of any man
But after work
She slept with whom she pleased.

The tenth grew smart
And left me.
She wasn't wrong either;
Making love is the business of the rich or the idle
Or the jobless;

If two hearts get together
The world is beautiful, it's true,
But two naked bodies
Belong in a bathtub.

The eleventh was a serious worker.
What else could she do?
She was a maid for a sadist;
Her name was Luxandra;
At night she would come to my room
And stay till morning.
She drank cognac, got drunk.
And before dawn, she went back to work.

Let's come to the last one.
I got attached to her
The way I loved no one else.
She wasn't only a woman, but a person.
Not foolishly after fancy manners,
Or greedy for goods and jewelry.
``If we are free'' she said;
``If we are equal'' she said.
She also knew how to love people
The way she loved living.


This poem, which was found wrapped around his toothbrush after
his death, is unfinished.