Poems of Sherzod Artikov (Uzbekistan)

 

Sherzod Artikov is a writer, essayist and translator. He graduated from Ferghana Polytechnic Institute in 2005. He was one of the winners of the International Award of Contemporary Author’s Fairy Tales held in North Macedonia in 2021. His stories have been translated into 28 languages of the world and published in websites, magazines and newspapers of about 60 countries.

In 2020, the author’s books “Autumn Symphony”, “Beauty that did not save the world” and “Mona Lisa’s Smile” were published in 2022. In the middle of 2021-2022, his stories and poems were published in international anthologies in Bangladesh, Egypt, India, Canada, Tunisia, Greece, Mexico, Indonesia, USA, UAE, France, Lebanon, Poland, Turkey, and his author’s books were published in Cuba in 2021 “La Sinfonia del “Otono” in Spanish, in 2022 in India under the name of “The Book of Garcia Marquez” and in Romania under the name of “Sonata lui Rachmaninov” in Romanian.

In 2021-2022, he participated in international literature festivals held in Argentina, Tunisia, Singapore, Chile, Romania, Nepal, Nicaragua, Portugal and Indonesia.

He is a 2021 laureate of the “Golden creativity award” of the Mexican-Moroccan literary alliance for young translators and a member of the International Federation of Writers “FIEL” in Argentina and the World Union of Writers and Artists “UEMA” in Portugal.

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 crumled

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 Makondo 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 can not see it, 

Can not 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.