A wrestler made a bowl out of a plastic

Cola bottle

To collect raspberries.

He hung it around his neck

To collect raspberries

To buy himself a wrestling singlet.

Bahtiyar Hidayet, a poet from Azerbaijan, shares his seven short poems 

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.

A Medal Worth More Than Gold

A wrestler made a bowl out of a plastic

Cola bottle

To collect raspberries.

He hung it around his neck

To collect raspberries

To buy himself a wrestling singlet.

Bravo, you’re a man.

This is your first medal.

Check its value,

Take a raspberry from that bowl and eat it, champion.

I know you don’t want

To gain weight

And the raspberries’ weight to decrease.

This impasse

Will lead you to the light, my dear.

***

Dialysis Patient

In our city, notices were nailed to trees

“House for sale, land for sale – price negotiable”

It is strange that later those trees themselves were also sold

But for a fixed price

Now there are banks in the place of those trees

Bank employees have pasted loan notices

On the surviving trees

They sell money to the public

But they are very fair

When loans for gardening are delayed

They give a discount of one percent

…My friend who is in debt

Reads the loan notices

And I

Read the fate of the tree on which these notices were pasted

But one piece of news shook me

One notice said that a kidney was being sold

This news also shook the tree

As if the tree was a dialysis patient.

__________________

Read: The Chair – Poetry from Azerbaijan