Bahrom Ruzimihammad

Category: Uzbek modern poetry Published: Sunday, 29 September 2013

Bahrom Ruzimihammad was born in 1961 in Kharezm region. Modernist poet, he made great contribution to development of free verse poetry in contemporary Uzbek literature. He published many poetry collections including “Soundless step”, “The star near the poplar”, “Two lights”, Davsaman”, “Calmly blooming tree” and “Breadths of the day”. His poems are not experiment-for-experiment’s sake or they are not self-referential to the point of opacity. Instead, they remind the reader of the unexpected beauties of the mundane. B. Ruzimuhammad is a member of Uzbekistan Writers’ Association. His poems were translated into Russian, English, German, Turkish, French and Polish languages. At present he works at the editorial office of the magazine “Guliston”.

***

a flower cracked from the smallest dust
a bud that swallowed tune of singing bird
night falls and you become celestial

as if dawn will never light today
until doomsday whisper of the leaves
with the moon-light entered into union

when horizon flashes as a ruby
it seems that voice of owl is so awful
but I take great pleasure from this fear

white red black come over all subsistence
colors do not hinder one another
each of them is lonely and unique
It’s a sorrowful song of the night

***

fear is guest of hollow of a tree
a snake fell in love with a dragonfly
and I start to eat pap of the grief

there is a multicolored rainbow
but why a peacock is bored in the cage
the sky will never remain outside

there are evening stars farther on
and a huge eyewater as a ball
it’s a mother of rain and white snows

hereabout resides Archangel
gargles with the water of the moon
polishes all his teeth with rainbow

when it comes through branches of the tree
suddenly spreads out lilac light
at that moment I will leave this world

***

Could not bear pupil of the eye
to this color
because it was very green indeed
more than even over-red
ultra black was nothing before it
also darker than super-yellow

leaves of fir-tree like cast iron stem
weren’t able to repeat that color
neither plant nor headscarf of an angel
nor even artist’s good imagination
looking at you probably will groan
dream will broke itself

but tell nobody that you saw it
may nightingale sing its song again
may leaf rustle instead being trembled
may an early spring not return back
having seen pretend you’d never seen.

LEGENDS

1. About a frog dreamt of flying

A frog was jealous of a bat:
This blind and mousy creature
Is flying in the sky.
I see his wings by moonlight.
Oh, the world is like this.
Here is my destiny –
Leaping,
Leaping,
Leaping,
To dive in stinking pond.
And lots of mosquitoes –
That’s all written in my destiny
But as regard the bat…
Me myself have green eyes,
Light-weight body,
And splendid voice to sing
If I only flew…
It began to hate itself
But suddenly to its small head
A good idea has come:
Fishes also do not fly,
And can’t live on land at all,
Legs are not given to snake,
There is no head for worm.
So the frog considered happy,
And began to sing anew.

2. About a greedy mouse

A mouse brought a golden coin to the hole,
But this time not from the cat,
Big claw ran after it.
Coming into the small room
It has not gone out any more,
Being worried, not got out.
Even the baby, no doubt,
May not go in
To the hole of the mouse –
They understand it.
– Mouse, said the man, –
Whether your children dance
On light of a golden coin?
Give it to me,
I’ll give you bread in exchange.
– No, said the mouse, –
Let my children look
At sacred thing which teeth do not sink.
: And so the mouse did not return back
The golden coin to the man.

INSANE

He plucks a fowl
buries into the soil
and then
waits for vegetation of a bird.
He casts seed in cupped hand
to a bird’s nest
and believes that grass will grow there.

IN THE SPRING

April
Right at your house
you will see a muddy water of the Amu.
Buried vineyard
extending its hands
to beams
in some days
will cry as baby in joy.
You wish not to leave this garden
when a warm wind blows
breeze that holes bushes
and mixed with odor of grasses:
a dragonfly alights to the window
a swallow knocked the doors
caravan of ants will cross the path
I wish to hold a talk to one of them.

DAVSAMAN

To professor Mrs. Ingeborg Baldauf

Hairs are tousled and bright
eyes are very red
beak is long
with tender motions
leaps from a grave to another

when glaring at darkness
with the eyes like two drop of blood
empties all of a sudden

Verdure disturbs the moon-light
millennial soil is in strong asleep
so weak soil that not able to dream
one can hear a weary weeping

on the dome of the praying mosque
light rays pursue each other
and revolve like a circle

a baby weeps noisily
the soil that the grasses join
weeps with faded voice
cry strikes against the dome

then davsaman stands in its two legs
joins the circle of spirits
watches their senseless game
and keeps silence
davsaman sleeps like this

davsaman wants to wake up in the morning
but it does not feel its own body
when it ties to open eyes
bud of verdure blooms at once
only then it knows that became so melted

On the dome of the praying mosque
when the majesty grows swelling up
The spirits hold their breath
King of the cemetery night
a creature distributed its body to dews
tousled and bright
red-eyed
black-voiced
its voice is like a baby’s eye

Translated by Azam Abidov

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