Apple Vodka (Poem)

 

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.

 

© Bahtiyar Hidayet

NOTE:

About The Poem

Bahtiyar Hidayet's "Apple Vodka" is a potent and evocative poem that blends religious allegory, personal rebellion, and a darkly humorous sense of catharsis. It explores themes of ancestral sin, inherited suffering, personal vengeance, and a paradoxical search for paradise through self-inflicted "punishment."

"Apple Vodka" is a powerful and provocative poem that reinterprets the biblical fall from grace as a personal justification for rebellion and a search for an unconventional form of liberation. The speaker's act of transforming the cursed apple into an intoxicating spirit becomes a symbolic act of reclaiming agency and finding a unique path to inner peace, even if that path is through a kind of "vengeance" and a transient, alcohol-induced "paradise." It's a commentary on inherited burdens, personal freedom, and the diverse ways individuals seek solace and meaning in a world they perceive as "hell."

 

About The Author

Born in 1974, Bakhtiyar Hidayat is a published poet from Azerbaijan. He's also a history teacher, and he's married with three children.