IN THE MOST HATED ROOM
How do flowers grow
in the most hated rooms,
leaning over tablecloths
while someone underneath drinks
bitterness?

Flowers grow
but only forward.
Their memory has been surgically removed, 
maybe by an anonymous Greek god.
They refuse to turn their heads toward the past
and even sunflowers deny it…
“We deny it”, they say.

​They don't live in the past
but they leave a scent behind -
a letter that someone will open
one day.

January, 2026

BAKU, I DREAM OF YOU
Do you know that I still dream of you?
I dream of your pigeons and houses,
and of your small, ugly apartment blocks
rimmed to the neck with gas pipes.
I dream of your monochrome streets,
among which Zaha's genius shines
in white, and stands out like a drop of blood
on your oil-perfumed face.
I dream of your trees - the lone wolves,
covered in a thin veil of dust,
and I dream of your golden teeth,
and I dream of your Flag Square,
and the bustle in front of the Nizami metro station.
I dream of your voice too — in a glass full of wind,
and of your empty benches on the shore, early in the morning.
I dream of you, I dream of you, my Baku -
how you keep injecting me every Friday
with the solitude of the sixth and the seventh days,
and how I love you even more for that.
I dream about how I’m losing you, but you don't care at all.
Because you don't need me; only I need you.
That's why I dream of you, Baku.
aa / 2023