Apple vodka
Bahtiyar Hidayet: Poem ‘Apple vodka’
Mullah, this time
don’t shame me for being drunk.
You know it well—
thousands of generations ago,
our forefather was condemned
for taking a bite of an apple.
Since then,
we’ve been doomed
to live in this hell.
I, too, took revenge on apples.
First, I chopped them to pieces.
Then I imprisoned them in a barrel
until they rotted and began to stink.
But even that didn’t calm my rage.
I punished them
as if boiling them
in the infernal cauldron of hell.
Then I drank their tears.
I drank—
as if I were drinking blood.
I had become a vampire.
Now my head
is filled with the air of paradise.