Georgian poet, writer, essayist and TV host was born in 1984, He was appointed the general director of the National Parliamentary Library of Georgia in 2012, holding the position till present. Kekelidze is the winner of Saba Prize for the best literary debut; he is the winner of Tsinandali Award for poetry. He was the co-founder and editor-in-chief of the first Georgian digital library lib.ge (2006-2012).
Book of Scarecrows / To Gods - To men
Never in my village - have met in other’s
We, from a rib of sleeping tree,
were made and then breathed in with soul,
in order to move off dust from us
and for that we could suffer somebody else’s body.
We are a bit taller than you,
we’re always looking at the wing of our hat
not to notice your face
and, mixed from black coal,
our eyes,
painted onto our face like spectacles,
couldn’t learn to weep.
we don’t have mouth,
we can’t breath-air that stole into us
from the grown tooth of your saw,
is still in our lungs - it’s enough just to stay
on our feet.
And we’ll breath it out only
when saw, as wet, cold belt,
will wind our waist.
We have no tongue, we bit it off
with your exes,
not to tell the crows with lean sides
about kitchen-gardens with out absence.
we have no foot
and we are stepping just on the shadows around us
and it’s only if wind suddenly shoves us on the back.
Dream that we appropriated-
tells about empty, noiseless sky,
about gun and scattered down
and this dream means free kitchen-gardens.
The dream that we appropriated
is so short and it means death,
it’s so short and we are afraid –
motley rags ruffle on our body,
our back is running with cold moss.
Long life-lines
that we scratched on our hands with pen-knives,
come and cut them soon,
come and fire us into the clouds
in order to warm your frozen rib
for other summer-kitchen-gardens.
Translated by Nino Bardzimashvili