Poems of Bahtiyar Hidayet (Azerbaijan)

Bahtiyar Bahtiyar Hidayet (born 1974) is an Azerbaijani poet and history teacher from the Qazax region. Writing under the pen names Bəxtiyar Hidayət and Yaralı Bəxtiyar, he specializes in both free verse and traditional Azerbaijani poetic forms, including təcnis and qoşma. He is the author of four poetry collections and his works, along with interviews, have been featured in several international literary publications and platforms.


Even the Dead Sigh
Bahtiyar Hidayet

Saying, “My flower, my flower,”
he made his heart a flowerpot
and cherished his beloved like this.

But his beloved
was always pouring her anger and resentment on him
like a trash bin.

And he was the most talented poet,
in a word, his chest
was a treasure of words.

There were also fights and quarrels,
and quite a lot of dishes were broken.

But foolishly,
every time,
instead of the broken dishes,
he bought new ones.

The dishes in the house were changing,
but he never changed
the “flowerpot” once and for all.

...And this was the end.
The woman in black clothes
was crying out over her husband’s grave.

Even now, she does not let him rest peacefully in the grave.
She has even reserved a place for herself beside the grave.
Her husband, from the grave,

wishes her a long life — a thousand years, a million years.

There are two flowerpots beside the gravestone,
but those flowerpots have cracked by themselves.

It seems even the dead sigh.
The woman, not knowing this,
curses the gravestone maker.




The Happy Refugee Who Had No Money for Cigarettes
Bahtiyar Hidayet

Musa grandfather, who had settled in the city as a refugee,
was a very big man.
In his youth, he had strangled a wolf and killed it.


But the city children
filled the inside of a cigarette with marijuana
and gave it to him instead of a cigarette.
And that big old man,
thinking the mirage he saw on the asphalt was a lake,
rolled up his trousers, took his shoes in his hands,
and crossed to the other side of the road.
The city children laughed a lot,
boasting about their jackal ways.
Musa grandfather said goodbye to life that evening.
He was the only refugee
who had died from pleasure.


Musa grandfather had carried the burden of a house on his shoulders.
Even the movable belongings of his house were living a refugee life.
Ten people could barely lift
the weight he had lifted.
But he himself did not know that
the heaviest burden he had carried throughout his life
was the shoes in his hands.


He was the first resident of this village to die in refugeehood.
It was as if he had passed through that sea of mirage.
Just as Moses had saved his own people,
he too had saved his own villagers.
Because immediately after this, many refugees died and were saved.


Thus,
Musa grandfather went down in history
as the only happy refugee.
The happy refugee who had no money for cigarettes
dragged behind him
all the unhappy refugees
and took them to the cemetery of exile.


Strangely,
a lot of wild marijuana bushes
have grown around his grave.
Musa grandfather is probably enjoying himself there too.


He should be thankful that he died.
Otherwise, because of these wild marijuana bushes,
they would have taken a lot of bribes from him.
They would not have cared
that he did not even have money for cigarettes.