Out of poverty, he used stakes instead of poles
And used a few acacia trees as stakes
Then he went to war
Returned with shrapnel in his body.
Bahtiyar Hidayet is a poet from Azerbaijan
Bahtiyar Hidayet, born in 1974 in the Gazakh region of the Republic of Azerbaijan, graduated from university in 1995 and has been working as a history teacher since 1998. Wrote poetry since high school and has 4 poetry books published in Azerbaijan.
1
While he was fencing
Out of poverty, he used stakes instead of poles
And used a few acacia trees as stakes
Then he went to war
Returned with shrapnel in his body.
Meanwhile, the acacias, tightly wrapped with wire,
Had their bark torn and the wire had entered inside them
Now the acacias were eating the wire, squeezing it.
The acacias resembled their owner
As if they had shrapnel in their bodies too
And they were feeding off that shrapnel
Thus meeting their iron needs without tiring their roots
He too fed on the shrapnel
As a war veteran, with 80 AZN per month
One day, due to debt,
His gas was cut off
He chopped the acacias as firewood
He burned the acacias as firewood
The shrapnel in the acacias was melting from the heat
But the shrapnel in his body gave off even more chill
2
Prison light
Insults, torture, indigence
Are locking one’s throat
So whatever you eat
Doesn’t go through
Here the light of government does not go out
Here the light of fate goes out
The light is imprisoned here
There is no peace day or night
Light is the prisoner of darkness
And inmates die
Like a moth attracted to light
There are news from home
Government cut the power
There is light in here, darkness at home
The country has become a prison.
If I get free one day
I have to take light back
In return for the food parcels
Coming from home
The country is in darkness
You end up in prison
If you follow lead of light
So we have to follow the other side
Where dogs bark
Because there is a tragedy
Where light comes from
3
How could they know…?
“The closest star to Earth is the Sun.”
But how could astronomers know?—
That for me, the closest star
Is my beloved — she is the star on the balcony.
“The longest era was the Stone Age.”
But how could historians know?—
That for me, the longest era
Is the time I waited for you.
“The hardest thing is to know oneself.”
But how could philosophers know?—
That for me, the hardest thing
Is to lose you.
“1 + 1 = 2.”
But how could mathematicians know?—
That you and I are one soul.
…Ah,
What hopes I place in people,
What dreams I expect from them—
Even the scholars cannot understand me,
Let alone the fools.
4
Satanist
You praised your loneliness like this:
– Only God is with me.
Maybe because of you
The world has slipped from God’s memory—
Floods, disasters, hunger, wars…
Drive God away from your side.
Try to commit a sin.
Let the devil enter your heart.
Try to sleep with me.
At that time, I will bow to the devil.
Let the devil save the world.
5
Highway
Billboards on the roadside—
2 km to such-and-such restaurant,
3 km to such-and-such gas station,
5 km to such-and-such village, and so on.
And the portraits of martyrs.
But beside those portraits,
A device that can measure
The distance to eternity—
Has yet to be invented.
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