The real live broadcast
belongs to the egrets.
Their backsides
are much cleaner
than this troll’s mouth.
Bahtiyar Hidayet
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.
The Revenge of the Egrets
A stray dog,
spinning its wheels like a car,
marks the map of its own power.
Its claws are much, much more merciful
than the owners of the world
who have seized the map of the world in their claws.
But somehow,
I remembered not the giants of world politics,
but the very last man of world politics,
a troll that has recently gone mad like a dog.
He trusts the representatives of the authorities so much
that he spins his car’s wheels wherever he wants,
drawing the map of his own trolling.
…
TikTok made him famous.
Every day he opened a live broadcast
and praised the local authorities.
He was rewarded with a fake disability status.
As a disabled person,
he was given a property in the center of the city.
He opened a beer house—its name was “Garden of Paradise.”
With beers containing washing powder,
he was cleaning the insides of the people,
and he was making good money.
“To oppose the local administration
is a betrayal of the homeland.”
He repeated these words every day,
and his nickname became “Parrot.”
—
But one day,
egrets built their home
in the trees inside his property.
They covered everything with droppings.
Skeletons of frogs and snakes
began to fall from the nests.
He opened a live broadcast about it
and made a fool of himself.
The Republic Nature Protection Committee
registered the egrets.
—
Thus,
the arrival of these white birds
also brought his black days.
The customers left the place.
One ton of his beer spoiled.
—
He found a solution.
He had the area washed
with a fire engine.
But the Nature Protection Department fined him.
The washing powder in the water
could dry the trees.
The local administration
received a severe reprimand.
Their relations were damaged.
—
But he still opens live broadcasts.
On TikTok,
his followers send him parrots as gifts—
the same people
who would not throw even a handful of grain
to the hungry birds gathered on the internet cables.
—
Although “Parrot” found a new way
to earn money,
his life is now spinning its wheels
in this swamp.
Just look at his necktie.
It is like a dog’s collar around his neck.
As time grows tighter,
the collar around his neck becomes looser,
because he has become thin
like a stray dog.
—
The real live broadcast
belongs to the egrets.
Their backsides
are much cleaner
than this troll’s mouth.
Those water birds,
just as they drive away crows,
will also drive the trolls
out of this province.
Come on,
send gifts to those egrets,
O TikTok generation.
P.S.
At the beginning of history,
life also moved
from water to land.
Now the condition of this country
is also like the beginning of history.
The water birds have arrived,
and they have brought life
with their own droppings
to this place
that we call “Garden of Paradise.”
___________________
