BAHTIYAR HIDAYET

 

 

The Poet's Heart

 

The heart of a true poet

Is like an electricity meter;

If it is not loaded, it stops.

 

A poet is also like a lamp;

If it is not hung up, it does not give light.

But the gallows stool

Is under the feet of the one who hangs him.

 

Stools are very strange four-legged things.

They are more faithful than two-legged beings

And four-legged creatures.

We sit on them to rest,

And we also lean our shoulders against them.

There is no human left

To lean your shoulders on anymore.

But still,

Stools are also very unfaithful.

When we are hanged,

They run away from under our feet.

We fall into eternal darkness.

 

And such eternal darkness

Is better than this world.

Because now the source of light

Is not enlightened people.

Now the source of light

Are police cars.

Can the poet's heart endure this?

 

Ballad Of Salt Shoes

 

In ancient times

 

There was a tyrant—an old king.

 

His cruelty was so great that even cruelty itself was terrifying.

 

 

 

One day, sensing that his death was approaching,

 

he called his heir:

 

“Are you ready, my son? The throne is yours.”

 

The son was ready—

 

But the king decided to test him.

 

Two rams were brought.

 

For a month, each of them fed one.

 

A month later—

 

The heir’s fat and strong ram,

 

Maimed the guards.

 

But the king’s ram—

 

So thin that its ribs were visible through its skin.

 

And the most terrible part:

 

The king sprinkled salt on his shoes.

 

The ram began to lick them.

 

The heir learned a great lesson.

 

 

 

One day, when the tyrant was dying,

 

the devil asked him:

 

“What will happen to the country?”

 

The king replied:

 

“You will have to work for my heir.”

 

The devil trembled and said:

 

“Enough... even evil has its limits.”

 

...And the heir

 

became a very “good” king.

 

 

 

Seeing his cruelty, the people prayed for their father.

 

They licked his salty shoes.

 

And he

 

rubbed salt into the people’s wounds—

 

Even when there was no salt in their food.

 

P.S.

 

But let me tell you the bitterest truth.

 

Dictatorship, closed regimes, the Iron Curtain...

 

They are embodied by Kim Jong Un's fist.

 

Democracy, openness—even nakedness...

 

They are embodied by Kim Kardashian's buttocks.

 

Still, there is one thing to be grateful for:

 

Dictatorship is like a pinch of salt;

 

Democracy is like a salt lick.

 

And humanity still moves as a herd.

 

BAHTIYAR HIDAYET

 

BAHTIYAR HIDAYET — Born in 1974 in the Gazakh district of Azerbaijan. He is a historian and an experienced educator with 28 years in pedagogy. He is the author of four poetry collections: The Hem of Grief (2003), White Darkness (2012), Tecnises (2025), and The Closest Star (2025). Alongside traditional national poetic forms, he uses his own invented structural form called "cross-tecnis." His poems have been translated and published in the USA, Italy, Pakistan, India, Egypt, Bangladesh, Greeche, Spain and Albania.