THE CALL TO BE 

A PROPHET

Poem for Today -May 9, 2014

THE POET’S VOICE

I don’t want freedom gram by gram, grain by grain.
I have to break this steel chain with my teeth!

I don’t want freedom as a drug, as a medicine.
I want it as the sun, as the earth, as the heavens!

Step, step aside, you invader!

I am the loud voice of this land!

I don’t need a puny spring,

I am a thirsting ocean!

© Khalil Reza Uluturk

Translated from the Azeri by

Aynur H. Imecer

“Author’s Note: This poem

Has also been published with

The title, “The Voice of Africa.”

During the Soviet period, many

Azeri poets used other

Geographical locaions in their

Poems to disguise their feelings

About their own coutry and their

Own situation so that the Soviet

Censors would not suspect

The true meaning and ban their

works.”