Azim Suyun
Azim Souyun is a well-known poet. For many years he has been working for literary magazines and public organizations. Azim Souyun was the first to write qayirma (windings – A.A) in contemporary Uzbek literature. The word “qayirma” means a mature and ripe deed, action, craft and work. This beautiful word-notion again got back to language use. Besides, poet presents a qayirma (winding) to literary community as a new and separate genre. It is not a shaping; instead, it is a style resulted from logic and method requirements and there is no artificiality or constraint in it!
Each qayirma (winding) begins with “Hey friend!” This unifies them from composition extent. From this point of view, every qayirma is separate and at the same time, they are connected with each other as a common system.
“Hey fiend” – it is a True Friend, “Hey friend” – it is the World, it is the Creator, “Hey friend” – it is Love, it is Anxiety, it is Parting: It is History, Today and Future:
In ancient works one may see the same address to world and living creatures, as an address to contemporary, to Friend. Qayirma (winding) is clear and concise, therefore they ring like scripts engraved on ancient stones.
Azim Souyun published a lot of collections, including his bright poetry, articles, and interviews. He is a member of many international creative writing institutions. At present he is the editor-in-chief of “Guliston” magazine. He lives in Tashkent , the capital of Uzbekistan , with his family.
Hey friend!
Hey friend!
Be not extinct, my dream, and do not sweat,
Promise, lead a heavy life of mine.
Though they always try to bend its head,
But a tree grows only to the sky.
***
Hey friend!
Where is your face? It doesn’t exist.
Where is your word? It doesn’t subsist.
You would have face and word, but
Where are you yourself at first?
***
Hey friend!
Why do you watch closely my traces,
All the time as shadow short and long.
Well, I recognize two of your faces,
You’re a man who has tongue under tongue!
***
Hey friend!
Human being makes a man as person,
And a person makes the world as world.
But the world brings not a man to tension,
Only human may – a man – avoid.
***
Hey friend!
What for this hurt, for which of my misdeed?
This beauty doesn’t face, it’s every day,
Will a tomb of lovers be fed up,
In case one more lover passes away?
***
Hey friend!
I’ve met the fourteen-day moon in the sky,
I’ve met her in the ocean, she is my dream.
I flung myself to her embrace with fervor,
She widely spilt, I met her in a stream.
***
Hey friend!
I’m a spoon of salt, I’ll not be food,
To anyone I’m not a present – worth.
But sans me no meal for my beloved,
I never finish in her table-cloth.
***
Hey friend!
We went off in a swoon before a charming lady,
We’re cast spell on us – a golden bird – we lost.
She smiled a happy smile and left us ashamed,
Today we parted with the sun almost.
***
Hey friend!
Amorousness is a bazaar – too attractive,
Everyone is eager with each other in it.
Water flows among the lovers – spinning round,
Both a seller and a buyer – to purchase – sit.
***
Hey friend!
By traces a hunter finds his prey, in fact,
Stars will speak to an astronomer at night.
Do not wait for beauty’s mouth to speak -
Talking to her eyes I feel delight.
***
He friend!
With plaited hairs – disheveled around,
In a shady garden a girl sleeps.
I wonder: sitting down a butterfly
Begins to gently kiss her rosy lips.
***
Hey friend!
Though they wear simple and common garments,
Tidy women are attractive and lovely.
It’s true that they come of lily family
As if in a small pond a charming lily.
***
Hey friend!
Woman’s heart is the endless ocean of secrets,
None is able to know it as a whole.
When you look for a pearl, she gives a stone,
When you expect a stone, she grants a pearl.
***
Hey friend!
Whose horse is this? – Of one who saddles,
Whose robe is this? – Of one who covers.
Girls are not for married ones,
Whose girl is this? She is for lovers.
***
Hey friend!
What a soul is this, which looks for spring in autumn,
But in spring it searches a morning – brilliant, clear.
It takes pleasure with paramour in festive mood,
When it is sick, it seeks for its own dear.
***
Hey friend!
You gave me eyes; I saw the world beauty,
You provided with mind; I became wise.
You gave a language, but it is too incapable
To comment – still – my heart’s surprise!
***
Hey friend!
Take care today of a bud and immature,
Tomorrow in turn – love – you will meet.
Tell the simple truth to children today,
Tomorrow they won’t be able to cheat.
***
Hey friend!
Long live simple truth – a long-standing tree!
Long live simple truth – a never-ending tree!
One makes a cradle – from this tree – to rock,
Another one will make a butcher’s block.
***
Hey friend!
A watch once wished to gladden its owner
And began to slow its normal speed.
Body and heart trembled and complained,
“Time’s the only enemy indeed!”
***
Hey friend!
Flying is a divine charisma,
If God wants, a felting cloth will fly.
A lazy ostrich repudiated flying -
Everybody catches it that is why.
***
Hey friend!
No secrets remained in the Sky,
No mystery under the ocean you’ll find,
But I heard from the ancient times:
“All the secrets are inside the mankind!”
***
Hey friend!
There are nests of different birds in a tree,
And many animals house in a hill.
Why the mankind lives with revenge,
Though everyone has own land and meal.
***
Hey friend!
This fox lives in a kingly palace,
It has golden eyes and nails.
Even its drinks and food are of gold,
But watching for hens it always pales.
***
Hey friend!
Human being can’t endure neither cold nor warm,
He can gossip of someone without the end.
Sometimes he wants to catch an eagle in the sky,
At others he is unable to feed a hen on land.
***
Hey friend!
Around the endless, boundless universe
Countless wandering planets speed along.
God keeps them from bumping against the earth,
Will he save us from the human wrong?
***
Hey friend!
I don’t guarantee that it’s true or lie,
A shepherd told me once this adventure.
A snake is married with a hunter’s daughter,
Every time her guest – this funny creature.
***
Hey friend!
A plump bird caught a mouse,
Just imagine what does the mouse say:
- Set me free, I’ll hole your stomach,
I pierce walls, you know, everyday.
***
Hey friend!
A sleepy owl sees this motley world
In two colors – only black and white.
It never knows the beauty of its feather,
As a blind-heart man it doesn’t catch sight.
***
Hey friend!
There is a strange bird in a distant land,
It has a lot of grain to eat around.
But it lives and tosses its own garbage,
It always looks for something to be found.
***
Hey friend!
Every creature in a big forest
Hunts each other, despite it’s weak or bold.
I pursued this and absorbed in thoughts -
Who is not a hunter in the world?!
***
Hey friend!
They paint the world scene in many colors,
They suffer from the humankind welfare.
I read and saw: first, they kill famous people
And then begin to love them and take care.
***
Hey friend!
Know, this world is the entire house,
Pious or impious is of one same father.
There isn’t any host or sure winner,
Everyone is a beaten guest to each other.
***
Hey friend!
This is the sky; it is a huge cemetery,
This is the ocean; it is a graveyard – vast.
Graves are not bulging in these places,
They are the burial ground – eternal and last.
***
Hey friend!
There is a secret under the eternal ice,
Perhaps it’s a country or a city part.
A man is a puzzle, you will never know,
If I don’t tell you what is in my heart!
***
Hey friend!
Look at a scorpion; it is attractive and tender,
Touch it and examine, it is too interesting.
Its ancestors are older than mammoth,
But it’s malicious, it always likes to sting.
***
Hey friend!
This world is a mystery, humankind’s a secret,
Everybody clues it in his own way.
But always when they get to the last point,
Again all is riddle; because they pass away.
***
Hey friend!
A white stone half-dug into the soil,
Said to me as I was passing by:
- God bless you, pray, I’m a tombstone,
And under me your forefathers lie.
***
Hey friend!
A traveler says to me: “Yes, the world is great,
But everyone, in fact, has his own fate.
For a hungry snake – a green frog is meat,
In turn, a snake is food for a stork – to eat.
***
Hey friend!
A frog said angrily to a swan:
“You can’t be fish though you fin,
You can’t be a hawk though you fly,
In the earth, like me, you will skin.”
***
Hey friend!
I’m deaf, my eyes are sleepless,
A wolf is a wolf despite the place.
Oh, the one that is a king like it
Is a wart in all people’s face.
***
Hey friend!
Foe is always big and strong,
He may kill you with one grip.
I saw a phalanx in the desert
It demolished a flock of sheep.
***
Hey friend!
“I killed a tiger”- boasted a hunter
In my early life, long time ago,
A wayfarer told me yesterday
A scorpion stung and killed that man as though.
***
Hey friend!
A bird flew into my room and at once
The window covered with blood at a blow.
Oh God, it couldn’t find home in the sky,
How it died that sunny day I saw.
***
Hey friend!
I could not restrain myself from laughing
As I heard some words of a steppe fox:
“All the hens belong to me, but why
From my holding – oust me – your dogs?”
***
Hey friend!
Once I saw a twig in your hands,
Into a scorpion’s nest you had thrust.
I, poor, imagined the state of the twig,
You might use me instead of it at last.
***
Hey friend!
I wished to save the life of the sheep,
And I put a trap to a grey wolf’s trace.
To whom I need to cry for such a fate,
A deer was entrapped in its place.
***
Hey friend!
I am a drop and I flow with rivers,
I am a star and from the sky I glance.
I am everywhere in the universe -
Inside the people, suffering and chance.
***
Hey friend!
An ocean of the sands – the Great Sahara,
At noon it is too hot and it freezes at nights.
Women’s love is similar to this:
It’s an eternal secret which chills and ignites.
***
Hey friend!
The first work of mine – endurance and patience,
The second work is endeavor and motion.
I’m not a parrot in the world palace,
The basis of my life is example and meditation.
***
Hey friend!
I went to a laborer’s market, ask me, how,
A guy came to me; he was very funny!
I asked: What’s your price, hey little fellow,
He replied: A man’s price is not a penny!
***
Hey friend!
Though a king is gallant like a giant,
But if he’s not a person of great wit,
It means, his palace is the only ruins,
It means that a mat-maker cooked a sweet.
***
Hey friend!
We were passing over a graveyard,
All of a sudden my companion smiled
And he pointed at a cemetery:
“Have anybody ever seen it filed?”
***
Hey friend!
A word said to a word: You’re wordless,
An eye said to another: You’re eyeless,
I’ve heard a whispering from a salt-cellar:
Salt said to salt: You’re salt-minus.
***
Hey friend!
Translated by Azam Abidov
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