OVERTURE

White, black, yellow, green, red,
All of them are connected in some experiment.
One of them reminds us of our longing,
One of our trouble, another of our wish.
Each of them hides some meaning,
Each of them has some reason for its color.
Who knows who invented this?
Who told us for the first time that
Black means mourning,
red means holiday,
and yellow means hatred?
Who knows who branded the colors so
and distinguished them?
And who knows how his mood was
When doing this?
Red can mean blood as well as
A precious stone on a ring,
or a teardrop.
Black can be the symbol of mourning
as well as love,
or hatred.

White can blind our eyes,
And it can also decorate our table like flowers.
One sees leaves as green, Another sees them as red.
Bui leaves keep their original colors.
They are green,
Hi’ n they become red, and then yellow.
Colors pass through our hearts
Like warm and cool winds. Songs, tunes and voices
Fill our hearts like different colors. Colors arouse memories,
They give rise to feelings.
If we don’t want to see more than we see,
Then colors seem just like paints to us. And colors have harmony like music.
And pain, and joy and hope have their own colors.
The more you think,
the more colorful pages open.
The colors of life, fighting,
the soul, hatred, night, day
and human fate
Become alive in our eyes.

 

WHITE

The smile of a sleepy baby. Hope.
Disinterested favor.
The moment that the words:
“It’s not cancer!” are said.
Everything that creates
Happiness for humanity…
Even the lie
that has been told to console somebody.
And also the friendship between human beings.

 

WHITE: TINGE OF JOY

Granny’s sash. Motherland’s soil.

Granny’s sash. Motherland’s soil.
A blossoming bough in spring. Pigeon wings.
Snow of the North.
A baby’s face messy with milk. The delight that he gets
When dipping the spoon into the soup and taking it out.
The day when doubts are dispelled. A friend’s hand.
A disentangled knot.
And virtues, virtues and virtues That are worth the human name.

WHITE: TINGE OF LOVE

The meaning of life. The mirror of the soul.
Wealth that has no price and no market to sell. The key that opens only one soul,
And human who perceives and feels.

CREAM COLOR

The grief of Africa.

The comb that my grandpa uses to comb his beard.

The news of easy income. The fate of Negroes.

The tale of tales.

Your wishes coming true

in your dream.

Profit that is taken from death. Prison bars.

Looped rope.

A cane whip with wires.

An excuse for an elephant’s death.

The world of longing.

Seven years’ toil

of seven-folded and patterned small spheres.

The Sakinas, Salmans and Ahmads,

of the countries that are wailing with pain.

 

 

GRAY

Those who have melted into the majority. Those who grow in any land.

Cigarette ash

That has gone out between dead fingers.

Wilted flowers -wrapped in plastic.

Meaningless days, empty hearts.

People of various characteristics.

A reluctant smile out of habit.

Silver that is left in hair

after cold loneliness.

The orphan girl with no change of clothes.

The colorlessness of time.

 

SILVER

The uselessness of weapons.

A moustache that is out of fashion.

The face of the teacher

who taught us the alphabet for the first time, that has been left behind for years.

Foamy waves.

The memory of grandparents.

Morning that plays in the mists.

Sheikh Shamil

and the dagger that hangs from his belt,

a prayer written on its handle.

The leaves of the poplar,

which are playing hide-and-seek in the wind. A bride’s mirror1.

The price of toil, tiredness and dreamless nights. The cold surface of branches in the North.

In distant smoke that gives hope to a tired traveler.

The younger brother of gold. An unlucky man.

 

PISTACHIO

 

The sea in spring.

Spring that has awakened without getting enough sleep. Lips that have opened with passion.

Ghazals, beauties.

A human glance.

The pattern of the first leaves

on willow branches.

Sorrow in gray eyes.

Moments from the thoughts about youth.

 

 

BLUE

The sea without waves. Love without pangs.

The depth of the heavens. Degas’4 “Dancers”.

The sun that has been painted by a young painter. Relaxed eyes.

Human meditations.

Watery streets amidst ice islands.

BLUE: TINGE OF CONSOLATION

The most terrible of all diseases: the feeling of justification to obedience. Hope for the arrival of the camel that has left its load in Tabriz. The sweet poison of delusion.

The patterned shadow of a bush in the hot desert.

The blueness of heavens

that is strained into the souls of those

whose roofs have holes. And also those who say: “So what!

Good thing it’s not me!”

Which doesn’t suit the name of human.

 

CHESTNUT

 

A camel caravan in the desert.

My grandpa’s Koran with gilded patterns. Colonies.

The inextinguishable fire of fighters. Heat that burns the soil.

Inconsolable distress.

Faces that are shadowed

by the trees that are like elephants’ trunks, that grow as high as they can,

and hide their heavy branches with green leaves. And eyes, eyes and eyes.

 

DARK BROWN

The Sun’s wrath

which has fallen onto the sands of the desert. memories of Balzac5.

A burned heart. Extinguished globes.

Gaughin’s traces in Tahiti. Oceans of tears.

Millions of gravestones.

Man reproaches.

The department of Hell on Earth.

Smiling and crying,

human, human and human.

 

ORANGE

Tales from “Arabian Nights” Snow at sunset.

A sheepskin coat from Khorasan7.

Suffocating stuffiness.

The bleating of a cow whose month-old calf was killed.

The caprice of a Mastan8 cat.

The shadow of a beloved woman who passes through memory.

The land of memories, Which is impossible to visit.

 

 

REDDISH ORANGE

A stab in the back.

An expensive bracelet-shackle. Green that has hid itself in dark blue:

Stepbrother of a young one.

Golden hair.

Trees from the South.

Straw that the drowning man tries to grab.

Very few people.

 

GOLDEN

The short dream of a convict sentenced to life imprisonment. The edging of clouds on a moonlit night.

The generosity of the earth. “Sunflowers” by Van Gogh9.

The mark of love that has been wound around fingers. The master of a slave.

The adornment of a word.

A cow’s dried manure

in grassless and treeless deserts. A mountain of wheat.

Tassels of hair. Tears of a hero.

The wanted head

of the one who has fled from death. The age of wine.

Time.

An ottoman that sits in a museum. The elder brother of silver.

The same age as crime.

 

Yellow

A sea of wheat that is full of grain.

The face of a mother who has an invalid child. Trees in autumn.

Hungry people whose portions have been eaten by strong ones.

Jingling metal that has spoiled love. The dream beyond life.

The scream of strings. Waiting eyes.

Mighty daffodils.

Debussy’s “Golden Hair”.

Ignorant bulls that enter the slaughterhouse. A clever madman.

A human deed.

 

 

DARK YELLOW

Longing for the bare walls of

the house where you were born. Truth that sniffs out repentance. Nazim Hikmat10 who competes with his wounded heart at sunset,

And his painful love.

The chaff from a threshing floor,

Not enough to feed a family.

A winter Sun.

The crescent Moon, seen in the sky

just for a moment.

The keepsake of bitter memories

of friends and humanity.

An invisible wound

that burns and burns

and won’t be extinguished.

The string that won’t be necessary

for cold fingers any more.

Ivy in shade.

Ashugs11 who have lot their tunes.

And dark yellow!

And also a great man’s

last love,

and his last pain.

 

 

VIOLET

 

The scent of spring in winter. Fear of frost.

Fear of parting.

The Sun’s pinches on white snow. Wrath in gray eyes.

Curled wire.

A miserable orphan.

A flock of cranes in the sky.

And also my granny’s tangled skein of yam.

 

DARK VIOLET

 

A drunkard’s nose.

The first day of classes.

A slain that causes doleful tears,

And the pattern of a baby’s hands.

Lilies under the Sun.

Mountains that have been hung from the sky As if by a zigzag lace.

 

NAVY BLUE

The charm of a richly laid table.

Blue that has thickened under hard pressure.

The wrath of the sea.

Patterns on the carpet.

The bitter memory of a passionate kiss.

Circles around the eyes. Obedience to tyranny. A snowy mountain peak On a moonlit night.

 

PINK

Slander against the nightingale. Cheap happiness.

A carefree village,

and the idiot who depicted it. Beer that gives pleasure.

A new shallow friend.

A coverlet for a pair of beds.

Flying feathers of a wounded flamingo. Omar Khayyam12 and his jug of wine

According to the imagination of ignorant people.

Wine that has spilled into the gap between day and night.

The spectacles of a hypocrite.

The book that has many pages, but little content.

Fragrant leaves –

Storm of roses.

Cheeks that are flushed From work and love.

Modesty.

Color that saves life.

 

 

VERMILION

 

An unforgettable view: Hardened steel. Prometheus’ gift

To humanity.

Tulip lakes in the mountains. The Gadfly and his tragedy13. A belligerent child.

The killer with knife in hand. Armed revolt on a rainy day.

The wrath of a nation in a decisive battle. The official march of triumphant flags.

a mosque with a minaret

in a village of shacks and mud huts. And also human charm.

 

 

RED: TINGE OF HOPE

A short path to distant starts. Also a human:

honest,

his eyes filled with faith.

 

TURQUOISE

The pain of love left in memories. The charm of the sea.

The light of the lamp with a green lampshade that falls into a blue wall.

The longing of a poor girl’s fingers. Jafar Jabbarli’s14 Baku.

Only two eyes

in the entire world.

 

 

RED: TINGE OF BELIEF

 

Endurance.

Grapes that have drunk the Sun’s rays. The path of hope.

A wide square filled with melodies. The weakness of bullets and promises.

The first child of a nervous father. The human name.

The taste of death.

Love for humanity. Bare truth.

 

 

REDDISH BROWN

Two men strolled

around mountains and hills,

and couldn’t find their way back. Night had blocked all paths.

But when the sun rose from the horizon,

those two men found their way.

 

SCARLET

My granny’s wedding shawl. The smell of kebab.

Girat’s15 horseshoes after battle.

The cover of night’s coffin.

The wooden stump under the butcher’s cleaver.

Lips and nails.

Tracks of a wounded prey in the snow.

 

RED AND BLACK

Hope was going to leave us before it came. It delayed its departure after it came.

When the blood started running in the veins

of the sick man whose breath

couldn’t even fog a mirror, Hope came back.

It was seen in men’s eyes, In their looks, in their faces. The shadow with icy breath kept away from the door slowly, disappointedly.

The man took a deep breath.

 

BLACK

A treacherous enemy.

Fear that has hid itself from consciousness.

I he pain of eternal separation.

Man of those who grovel for a living.

Invalids who crawl are exceptions. An outrageous lie.

A sigh that bums lips.

The morning of an execution day.

Spiteful words. The blaze of eyes. Hair and eyebrows.

The meat of a breathless gazelle.

And also the intentions of some people.

 

 

BLACK: TINGE OF GRIEF

 

Longing eyes. Tousled hair. Trembling lips.

Cripples that lead on the racetrack. Ears that can’t hear even a word.

Broken branches that had just blossomed before they were

broken.

Mountains without turnes. Waterless springs. Gameless forests. Flameless fires.

The dead that should be alive.

The alive that should be dead. Fettered tribes and nations, whose languages

have been driven out of the highest assemblies.

 

MIXED COLORS

Human life.

The caprices of face.

The rooms of a respected man of tradition.

Wishes and hopes. Manuscripts that are resting in the cages of archives. Cloud patches in the heavens. A black and white pig.

Or dutiful way

that has been left in the memories. Day and night pages of eternity. The stained human face.

Leather spoiled by moths.

Woolen matted skeins of stockings.

A variety of joy, grief, belief and despair.

A zebra colt;

big or small, doesn’t matter. The joy of happy people,

The mourning of the unhappy.

The human world.

 

 

DON’T TOUCH – JUST PAINTED

A smile on one’s lips. Chameleons Experienced monkeys. Black yogurt.

White soot. Edible sand.

A substitute for love.

Purposeful applause. The moments when

The human soul is empty. Fleas that seem like elephants.

Memories about Samad Mansur”. Lies that appear to be truth. People with trousers, shirts,

skirts and gloves. All kinds of paints.

Steps that hurry from wedding to funeral,

and vice versa.

1960-1962

 

COLORED DREAMS

 

THE FIRST FEELING

I am dreaming of colors: red, yellow, green.

They are just like the artist Toghrul’s17 paintings.

Color juxtaposed with color, Paint mixed with paint.

My black and white dreams are like boring conversations.

Sometimes they are like bitter memories,

Sometimes, sweet rhymes.

I am sick and tired of colorless dreams and simplicity,

As well as knowledge merely learned by heart.

I am thirsting for colored dreams.

No matter how many colored dreams I have, When I get up, I complain bitterly:

“Why did I have so few of you, colored dreams?” The colors that I dream of

Are the colors of my overwhelmingly busy world. Sometimes I dream of a silvery drop – sweat on forehead,

Sometimes varying views of life.

I would have written a lot about the world of colors, if some literary stammerrs,

some chameleons and mumblers

didn’t smear the colors.

My white and black dreams Are like old photos

and monotonous poems.

My colored dreams are bright, As bright as life itself,

As bright as the scent

that I have breathed in from thousands of flowers,

And as bright as the taste

that I have had from different fruits.

 

TANGLED COLORS

I’ve been dreaming of colors for several days.

I remember “the letter that was written to an unknown woman”.

At nights I see colored dreams.

In the darkness of my closed eyes,

I see distinct,

clear, bright,

various,

harmonious colors.

The disheveled colors of my dreams

Make me uneasy in my dreams as well as in reality. Sometimes I wake up feeling like I’m still asleep, and I don’t believe what I see.

Those disheveled colors, Those melting in tinges,

That stormy mixture of colors,

That brilliance,

The sequence of colors that cries out Doesn’t seem true to life.

Did I ascend a mountain?

Did I descend to a plain? Did I enter a sea?

I don’t know.

I’m still thirsting for colored dreams Like a child who’s been deprived of care.

My colored dreams build patterns in my eyes, And in the heavens.

The patterns are like half-hoops, They are seven-colored.

They have hundreds of shades

Like a sash.

Even if I part with all that I have,

I don’t want to part with my colored dreams. Colors!

My joy,

My pain, my offense!

I have no peace or patience without you.

 

 

MAN OF LIFE

 

1 dreamed of a colored world.

I dreamed of it without white and black.

I dreamed of seas – azure, dark blue, light blue and yellow.

I dreamed of forests – green, golden and orange. The sky seemed to me like a silver coin. Human colors were disguised

And their real faces were shown. Everything and everywhere,

All that I saw was open and clear.

The storm of colors that broke out wildly told me such a lot of things,

made me understand so many things.

Every time the shade of colors changed,

Different scenes and worlds opened in front of my eyes.

I SAW

I saw warm yellow in the color of leaves.

I saw cool green

in the eyes of beauties.

I saw the path of life

in the wrinkled faces of several people. I saw grief and sorrow

In the hair of some people,

And I saw how those grieves and sorrows had turned black to white.

In the looks of some youth,

I saw Hope! Wish! Revival!

Which haven’t found their colors yet.

 

 

A PIECE FROM LIFE

 

My dreams are as colorful as life itself.

They are as colorful

as the deeds and words of good and bad people.

I want to throw

the black color

into the anxious and entangled dreams of unimportant people.

I want to blend my colored dreams

with the immortality of my lively and colorful world that has thousands of shades.

Dreams are the mirrors of life.

Sometimes they show the world as it is, Sometimes they do it differently.

No matter how sweet it is,

Some day human beings will wake up.

But let’s not fill our hearts with regret and anxiety, When we wake up after a colorful dream.

Though we rejoice and take a deep breath When we get up after a black dream.

Let our colorful dreams bring us success,

But let them not remain just as dreams.

 

IN THE WORLD OF COLORS

I dreamed of a baby.

He had almond-shaped dark eyes.

I remembered Vietnam in my dream. I dreamed of a red pool of blood,

And there was a baby with almond-shaped dark eyes

by that pool.

Next to that baby were some people who had been lined up to be shot.

I dreamed of Vietnam.

Its heavens were as red as blood, And its soil was ashen gray.

Its paths were like a tiger’s skin. Its trees were black.

Yellow fire was flowing

over its mountains and huts. I dreamed of a baby.

He had almond-shaped dark eyes. His legs and hands were red,

As well as his lips and tongue.

His eyes reminded me of

the black silence of heavens.

And…

Suddenly it thundered.

The sky was ripped into pieces. Thunder broke the silence.

A moment passed…

Or was it a long period of time?

I saw a row of silvery coffins in the airport.

They were going to some distant place,

And they all had black satin ribbons on them. I also saw vengeance the color of fire,

It was lifting the heavy horizon.

 

 

WHITE PEACOCK

 

I dreamed of a group of peacocks.

There was one among them

that was snow white, with black legs.

The others were of different colors, of different shades.

I remembered only the white peacock.

I was wandering in countries

that had green, yellow, red and orange woods in my dream.

I met the white peacock

at every step I made.

It was sorrowful and looked offended,

very offended.

Its longing switched to reality from my dream.

My white peacock, my white peacock, Tell me how to remember you,

Tell me how to forget you. My white peacock,

Tell me how to interpret this art of my colored dream. Tell me how to forget it.

SPRING

My dream passed through the path of spring. I am drunken from the scent of flowers.

A bunch of flowers here,

a bunch there.

Green willows are drinking water from the river.

Colors of the world

have scattered all over the place. Every flower arouses a feeling: Love, hatred, joy and grief.

Fields are grassy, mountains are snowy.

My dream tastes life, the world tastes of spring. My wishes are of different colors.

I am looking at the colors,

I want to see more and more, my soul full of hope.

Shahdagh is standing on this side, Savalan18 on the other.

Can one whose hope and wish are alive Get enough of wishes?!

Can he fall under the influence of colorless dreams?!

Translated from Azerbaijani into English by Aynur Hajiyeva

 

1. Sakina, Salman and Ahmad: old common generic names.
2. Sheikh Shamil: hero of the Daghestan people, who foughta against Russian invaders for 30 years when they were trying to occupy Daghestan and make it part of Russia in the late 19th century.
3. A bride s mirror: Traditionally a wedding symbol that signifies purity.
4. Degas: Edgar Degas (1834-1917), French impressionist known for painting human figure in action.
5. Honore de Balzac: French novelist (1799-1850).
6. Arabian Nights: a well-known Eastern tale, also referred to as 1,001 Nights .
7. Khorasan: a province in Iran
8. Mastan: a common name given to cats in Azerbaijan.
9. Van Gogh: Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890), Dutch painter, post-impressionslist.
10. Nazim Hikmat, a well-known Turkish poet.

11 Ashugs: folk singers or roving minstrels in Azerbaijan.

12. Omar Khayyam, Persian poet of the 12th century.
13. The Gadfly and his tragedy: referring to Voynich s novel. Gadfly which tell about Italian national struggle for freedom in 30-40s of the 19th century.
14. Jafar Jabbarli, well-known Azerbaijani writer of the 20th century.
15. Girat: Koroghlu s legendary horse. Koroghlu is a hero of ancient epos of Turkish world.
16. Samad Mansur, Azeri poet
17. Toghrul Narimanbeyov: a well-known Azerbaijan artist.
18. Shahdagh and Savalan: two mountains in Azerbaijan.