Uzbek poet and short story writer also shares two other poems – A letter to Marquez and The Cortazar’s Tomb
Sherzod Artikov was born in 1985 in the city of Marghilan of Uzbekistan. He graduated from Fergana Polytechnic institute in 2005. He was one of the winners of the national literary contest “My Pearl Region” in prose in 2019. In 2020, his first book “The Autumn’s Symphony” was published in Uzbekistan. In 2021, his works were published in the anthology called “World Writers” in Bangladesh, “Asia Sings” and “Mediterranean Waves” in Egypt in English language. In 2021, he participated in “International Writers Congress” organized in Argentina under the name “Mundial insurgencial cultural” dedicated to Federico Garcia Lorca’s life and work, “International Poetry Festival” in Tunisia, “International Poetry Carnival” in Singapore. This year he was awarded “Global Peace Ambassador” by Iqra Foundation, “International Peace Ambassador” by World Literary Forum for Peace and Human Rights, “Certificate of Friendship” and other certifications by “Revista Cardenal” in Mexico. Currently, he is the literary consultant of the cultural website of Pakistan “Sindh Courier”, the representative and delegate in Uzbekistan of the literature magazine of Mexico “Revista Cardenal” and the literature and art magazine of Chile “Casa Bukowski”.
His works were published in several magazines and newspapers of Uzbekistan. Then translated into Russian, English, Turkish, Serbian, Slovenian, Macedonian, Spanish, Italian, Polish, Albanian, Romanian, French, Greek, Hebrew, Portuguese, Bengali, Arabic, Chinese, Indonesian, Persian and Urdu language.
Sky’s Tears
Ruined and broken
Land of Palestine
Day and night
Under the bombs
Blood flows like a river
Poisoned life of people
Dying children, old men
Dying fathers, mothers and sons
Families are being destroyed
Houses, walls are being crumpled
Nature is being terrified.
But, the world is silent
The Mankind is silent
The God is silent.
Maybe cries only the sky
Because of the cruelty of humanity
Carrying a complaint against them
Or being angry at their silence
Maybe cries only the sky
Who caught in deep shock
Whispering in the company of Earth
Turning whose tears into the rain
Maybe cries only the sky
For being not able to understand
In spite of the endless thoughts:
Why so bloodily killing each other
Brothers who in one land were born!
А Letter to Marquez
Teacher,
I pray for your homeland!
Now there reigns
Chaos, turmoil, bloodshed
A threat to peace grows
Human rights are being destroyed
Justice disappeared.
Your Macondo weeps
Where you’re safe and comfortable
Lived in past with a brunette Mercedes
Where you wrote the fabulous Buendia family
And described the formidable Patriarch
Your Macondo weeps
Where you breathed the fresh air
Opening the window in the early morning
Waiting for the sun on the windowsill
With a cup of coffee in your hand
You Macondo weeps Master
Where you sang a serenade
Cheerfully with a smile on your lips
Danced the tango, played tirelessly
With a glass of bitter tequila
Wearing a big branded hat!
Cortazar’s Tomb
The great one`s ashes rest here
In the cemetery of vain Paris
Among strangers a lonely tomb
As if staring into the horizon sadly
From here impossible it is
To see kindly land of Argentine
The homeland where he was born
The homeland where was spent
His childhood and adolescence
No, you cannot see it,
Cannot see it at all, painful tomb
It`s as obvious as
Two and two is equal to four.
But, a stubborn grave
Does not want to admit it
And it`s capricious claiming
To the gray clouds
To a half-naked trees
That beyond the horizon shines
The radiant smile of the motherland!
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