Contemporary Azerbaijani Poetry Shahmar Akbarzada

Shahmar Akbarzada
    (1941-2000)

Shahmar Akbarzada (full name Shahmar Akbar oghlu Akbarzada) was a popular Azerbaijan poet, translator and journalist. He was born on December 28, 1941 in the village Chamanli of Aghdam district. He studied at Shusha Pedagogical technical school (1960) and moved to Baku entered the Institute of Languages named after M. F. Akhundov. After graduation the institute he went to the village and worked as a Russian teacher at school. Two years later he moved to Baku again and worked as a journalist at the newspaper Azarbaijan Ganjlari (1968). He was editor-in chief of the newspaper Madaniyyat (Culture) from 1990 untill his death. He died on august 30, 2000 in Baku.
Shahmar Akbarzada was a member of the Azerbaijan Writers" Union and he was the author of over ten books, such as Lullaby for My Mother (1978), Love can"t be Debted (1982), I Regret For...(1988), Window to Truth (1998), etc.


Tonight
Oh, how nice is tonight, my soul!
Oh, how the Moon got full tonight!
As if the world is bathing in the milk lake
and horizons came down the height.

Night is washing her hairs in waters
like a flirtatious bride in white veil.
The wind is hung on the tree as headscarf-
Oh, how world is nice in early spring!

Maybe only we two are not asleep in this world,
Maybe this night is normal and right!
You look at me by the eyes of morning-
my fortune will be born like the Sun.

The stars are shed down one by one,
Night is washed under the rain of flowers.
Night is read and felt as a nice verse
that can be written by the hand of Land.

Let this night lengthen...
let the day would not break...
This night made me to lose my consciousness.
Let this night feel shy before your cheeks,
This night was only a black mole on your face...




Farewell
It is time to say good-bye each other, places,
Farewell, slopes, farewell, roads!
Each leaf is like a friendly hand,
Farewell, hands, shaking me!

I couldn"t tell my grief any one,
I couldn"t slip away from parting,
I couldn"n cross the borders of oppression,
Meadows, farewell! Fields, farewell!

I was not a cinder of a hearth and home,
I did not turn to saz and play Yaniq Karam,
I didn"t turn to dust and stay on your arms,
Farewell, pathways! Farewell, roads!

You didn''t rise becoming turbulent,
You didn"t destroy the dam of parting.
You didn"t wash even my troubles,
Rains, farewell! Torrents, farewell!

I have the share to stay in this world,
I have the share to be pleased with my fate.
I have the share to die for Freedom
Farewell, hamlets! Farewell, people!
Tabriz, 1992.