The Poet's Heart (poem)

✦ Key to reading

Between traitorous stools and unlit lamps, this poem reveals the modern artist's dilemma: in a world dominated by police sirens, true light is now a lost memory.

 

The heart of a true poet

Is like an electricity meter;

If it is not loaded, it stops.

A poet is also like a lamp;

If it is not hung up, it does not give light.

But the gallows stool

Is under the feet of the one who hangs him.

Stools are very strange four-legged things.

They are more faithful than two-legged beings and four-legged creatures.

We sit on them to rest,

And we also lean our shoulders against them.

There is no human left to lean your shoulders on anymore.

But still,

Stools are also very unfaithful.

When we are hanged, they run away from under our feet.

We fall into eternal darkness.

And such eternal darkness

Is better than this world.

Because now the source of light

Is not enlightened people.

Now the source of light

Is police cars.

Can the poet's heart endure this?

By Bahtiyar Hidayet, Azerbaijan

****************

Commentary

This poem is a striking, darkly ironic meditation on the isolation, persecution, and ultimate disillusionment of the artist in a hostile society. Through a series of unexpected and shifting metaphors—from electricity meters to gallows stools—the poet constructs a powerful critique of a world that has lost its moral compass.

Key Themes & Imagery

• The Burden of Creation: The opening comparison of the poet's heart to an electricity meter or a lamp suggests that art and sensitivity are functional necessities meant to measure truth and illuminate society. However, this brilliance comes at a price: without a load to carry or a place to hang, the poet's purpose is stifled.
  
  
• The Macabre Symbolism of the Stool: The transition to the "gallows stool" introduces a chilling blend of domesticity and execution. Stools are normally symbols of rest and support. Here, they are weaponized into agents of betrayal—faithful until the exact moment of execution, when they "run away from under our feet."
  
  
• A Critique of Modern Authority: The closing stanza delivers the poem's emotional peak. In a bitter inversion, the traditional "sources of light" (thinkers, philosophers, and enlightened people) have been replaced by the flashing sirens of police cars. State surveillance and coercion have usurped intellectual and artistic illumination.
  
  

Conclusion

Ultimately, the poem suggests that death or "eternal darkness" is preferable to living in a world devoid of true enlightenment. The final rhetorical question—“Can the poet's heart endure this?”—leaves the reader with a haunting indictment of authoritarianism and societal apathy.

Read more ...

*********************************

TRADUZIONE IN ITALIANO

Il cuore di un vero poeta

È come un contatore della luce;

Se non è attivo, si ferma.

Un poeta è anche come una lampada;

Se non viene accesa, non fa luce.

Ma lo sgabello della forca

È sotto i piedi di chi lo impicca.

Gli sgabelli sono strani oggetti a quattro zampe.

Sono più fedeli degli esseri a due zampe e delle creature a quattro zampe.

Ci sediamo sopra per riposare,

E ci appoggiamo anche le spalle.

Non è rimasto più nessun essere umano a cui appoggiare le spalle.

Ma tuttavia,

Gli sgabelli sono anche molto infedeli.

Quando veniamo impiccati, scappano da sotto i nostri piedi.

Cadiamo nell'oscurità eterna.

E tale oscurità eterna

è migliore di questo mondo.

Perché ora la fonte di luce

non sono le persone luminose.

Ora la fonte di luce

sono le auto della polizia.

Può il cuore del poeta sopportare tutto questo?