Muhammad Ghaffor, freelance poet, has several books of poetry to his crdit, including “The black smile” and “The bank of the silence”. His poems have been translated into English and German languages. He lives in Tashkent.
***
Poems from “The Black Smile”
My heroes
It can’t be helped, they also have
Their family and children
As a sparrow that bit the resin
They bite their own tongue
They can stand even they are slaves
Old man among them grows beard
They write a proverb for themselves
A sword does not cut a bowed head.
Rostrum
Once
it was
a tree.
Later
it betrayed
his own friends.
A moment
At night
An owl sings
As a poet
Reading a poem
About motherland
The sky
Trembles again and again
Suspicion spits
To the face of the moon
The moon that has neither hands
Nor legs,
And is consisted of belly only
How can it
Be beautiful
On the grass-plot
This man
Whose wife
And children
Left
Lies
Looking at the sky
The sky is clear
The sky is clean
He does not like to look at it.
***
Snowdrop laughs –
giggling, giggling, giggling,
grasses will hear –
whispering, whispering, whispering.
Something beats in your chest,
the moon gently caresses the dream.
Breeze imperceptibly kisses
a woman looking from the window.
In the battle-field
Chingiz-khan
pulled out
the heart of the child
He extirpated
the heart of his own generation,
the heart of his own grandchild
as he did not want that
one more person turns to traitor.
Rewarding the poet
Medal for hero –
Personally The First person hooks,
A man who felt squeamish from him in the stop
Is now jealous of his present condition.
Throughput the hall
He looks for his wife
Tell me, old hag, who am I?
And the wife, for the first time, begins to think;
How it was great I got married with him.
The black smile
1
The smile of black flowers
Are hanging
In my window.
2
I open slowly.
I am afraid of
Breaking this smile.
3
The dripping
Shadow
Sucks the smile.
4
Giving a hard sigh,
Shadow of dark black flowers,
Shadow of black smile
Flows in from my window.
5
Mummy,
Where am I going
Along the dark flowers?!
6
My mother –
A white angel
Comes from near the dark black flowers.
7
My father –
Prophet
Come from near the dark black flowers.
8
Stars
Are dispersed
Throughout the black world.
9
Barking of a dog
Breaks
The flowers.
Peasant
He
If he comes to a city,
Restaurants
Look at him contemptuously
Like a widow.
To J. Joyce
I am shivering –
A long hand of death
Caresses my shoulder,
A drowning wail
Hastens in my blood.
I am shivering –
My heart is crumpled
Like a face
Disdaining from crowd.
I am shivering
It is hard to shiver:
In the summerhouse
Poet –
Reads a poem
About cotton
Scholar –
Gives knowledge.
Mattock
Wants
To chop them.
Rent-room
I walk noiselessly
Without a sound
Even my wife is afraid
Of giving birth.
I write poems
In moonlight
I cannot read them
Loudly.
The moon is noiseless,
Stars are soundless.
Thus I learnt
How to write poems
Noiselessly.
Quatrains
The city is too arrogant,
Concretes look insensibly.
Spring has lost its value here,
Let’s go, my son, to village.
***
I cried bitter tears, bitter tears,
A hole in the sky has appeared.
I do not complain of my life,
I cried loving such a beauty like you.
Last will
My dead, do not put
My dead body there,
If it is possible
Take you grandfather Chighatoy.
* * *
Keep your anger in
Hold your tongue
Keep a sword
Like you keep a woman’s hand.
I
I always deceived flowers,
I told them I love you.
I even cheated motherland saying:
I will die for you
I swindled Lenin,
I deluded Stalin,
I am deceiving myself,
It is worthy to put out my eyes.
Poetry
Despondent like Parfi,
Clear like Bahrom,
Beautiful like Guzal,
Ugly like Chingiz-khan.
A man
Leaning against
A tree.
Boast
You know,
In my thirty years
I was the right hand
Of the king.
– But I was not.
City
Here
The moon possesses no dignity
Even
Alimony is more valuable.
***
A dying man is a poet
***
Epitaph
If you love
Do not love like me,
Soundlessly say
The phrase “I love you”.
If you die
Do not die like me,
Being unaware
That the death is happiness.
If you write
Do not write like me
About motherland.
Hey, man
Staying on the gate
Of the motherland.
***
Stars
Are Dispersed
Like a poet
In exile
They have
Pitiful and miserable
Look.
Eh, why are there
So many
Poets
Exiled from their native land
Question
What is love.
What is adultery.
How much does fidelity cost?
Who is Friend,
Who is Enemy,
How much does loyalty cost?
A man
Going to market in the morning
Asks his donkey
About this.
The first love
I could not sleep at nights
Put my head
Under the quilt.
I fought a duel
With her husband
In my dreams.
Alhagi
It loves a camel,
The camel loves it,
Is there any other happiness
More than this?!
Autumn
In the eyes
Of an old dog –
Reflection
Of cranes.
Notes to Asqad Muktor’s portrait
1
Again
Autumn has come
Sorrowful like you,
Silent like you.
Parfi feels hurt
Still
He is very poor.
2
Trees
Though they are naked
They do not know
To beseech
3
My teacher
I understood now
It is too difficult
To live with them.
In a beautiful night
The full moon lights in the sky,
It is even fearsome to stir.
A stream babbles faintly.
How it is beautiful and accurate,
As if there is no misery in this world.
Even the phrase “I love you”
Is hard for this night.
Remembrance
We kissed
Under this willow.
Then we went
Through this path.
There was no end to our joy,
And an endless way.
A lake always met us
With open arms.
Today
The lake is flowing gently
As a woman
Whose husband has left.
I am looking for a word
A daughter of an old milk-woman
Is beautiful,
But she is more beautiful
Than her own daughter,
A beautiful old woman
Is a word that
No poet used to this day.
Love
You are mine.
And you live
In her house
Only as a tenant.
Esenin
My life passes like this everyday
In a crowded snack-bar.
The ways are insecure
I am walking on a slippery rock.
The moon entreats over my head:
Don’t go astray, go back, my child.
My clothes are dirty,
A pencil paints my image.
I read poems to my puppy,
How it is good, it cannot applaud,
I am versifying the world in my lines,
It gazes intently at me.
My life passes like this everyday
In a crowded snack-bar.
The ways are insecure
I am walking on a slippery rock.
***
To become a great poet
Your friends
Must sell you.
How cheaper you are
So greater you will be.
