Rafail Ali Taghizadeh
Date of Birth: February 11, 1958
Place of Birth: Aghdam, Republic of Azerbaijan
Education: Azerbaijan Polytechnic Institute
Professional Affiliations: Member of the Union of Azerbaijani Writers
Published Works: The Door
Winds of Karabakh
Night Dreams
Spring on Water
Martyr Brothers
Karabakh – From Longing to Victory
Contributions and Achievements:
Compiled the book Calm and Strong Like Water about the world-renowned scientist Rafiq Aliyev.
Actively translates contemporary world literature into Azerbaijani, with a focus on Polish poetry.
Co-author of the anthology of modern Polish poetry titled A Sudden Meeting.
Compiled the book Poets Speak the Same Language by translating the works of Polish poets.
Awards and Honors:
Laureate of the International Rasul Rza Prize.
Recipient of the Presidential Award.
Awarded a special diploma by the Polish Minister of Culture and National Heritage for his poem Chopin’s Heart and for promoting the legacy of Frédéric Chopin on the occasion of the composer’s 200th anniversary.
Representation and Leadership:
Represented Azerbaijan at the 100th-anniversary event of Nobel Prize-winning writer Czesław Miłosz in Poland.
Founder of the literary magazine Literary Mood.
Translations:
His poems have been translated into English, Polish, Italian, German, French, Ukrainian, Russian, Uzbek, and Anatolian Turk
HESITATION
I wonder who is knocking on my door
At the dead of the night?
Maybe my relative or a stranger is knocking the door.
I wonder who remembered me this night?
Who knows my poor hut
With old door and old padlock?
And who is looking for me at this time of the night?
I guess there might be a number of reasons
A number of reasons I think over and over.
I have already forgotten to receive guests
Maybe the God had sent this guest?
As soon as the moon rises in the dark night
There is a night guest at the door.
I hold the handle with one hand
My other hand is on the hasp.
To open or not to open the door?
Still I don’t know.
PROTECT ME
Last night I couldn’t fall asleep
Because of grief
That grief will cause troubles to me.
As if the grief will dye me to my own blood
With the help of my hand and my fingers.
And then the grief will stare at me surprisingly
And will try to persuade me that everything is related with destiny,
Will cause my blood freeze in my veins, make me to keep silence
Keep my row inside of me.
The wishes aren’t over, the assumption doesn’t become true,
My stretching hand can’t catch the ocean.
Let me be over the sea
If you want I might walk off this place
Don’t make me be ashamed of myself.
Open the doors of this night,
I shall swallow the night alongside with the air.
Alongside with the sea, alongside with the sky
Alongside with the stars and the Moon.
My God, protect me from the sin,
Don’t let me be ashamed of at the sea or the moon
Don’t make me be ashamed of at HER.
…Protect me from a night’s sin.
Protect me for a night’s reproach.
I DREAMED MIXED DREAMS
I dreamt mixed dreams,
The thoughts hung from the hands of the clock
Swallow the dead of the night.
The timeless darkness is hovering above the window
The last glimmers of the Moon disappear in the sky.
The melting night is flowing towards the morning
The fading flower designs
Look at my face surprisingly.
A light breeze is blowing
Through my confused thoughts.
Before the night that I didn’t live isn’t over
The assumption of the morning
Is holding the handle of the bored door.
As if the disappearing time
Is shouting at my ear,
The empty space is destroyed.
This night you didn’t appear in my dreams,
This night I didn’t appear in your dreams too.
Like my daytimes the night isn’t mine.
The timeless darkness is hovering above my window.
In the timeless darkness.
My longing, my expectation
In the timeless darkness
And I am being hung
From the hand of the clock.
BEING WITHOUT YOU
In the yard
The leaves are playing hide and seek with a lamp.
Memories in the lonely house.
The dreams are in the other side of the hill.
I am a stranger
The twinkling stars might not recognize me.
In the mornings
Everything is as green and as deep as valleys.
To be without you in sleepless night
Is as dark as the window
The light of which is off.
THE MISSING NIGHT
In this missing night
There is neither a wave of sea
Nor there is a shadow
To touch my face.
This night there is no moon in the sky
To have a talk with me
And let our grief confide sorrow with each other
In this quiet night.
In the arms of the darkness
I carry this missing night
To the morning
In the inside of my hands.
Translated from Azerbaijani into English by Sevil Gulten
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