For Sh.

Like this tarnished sky
this frantic air
and your furiously homonymic fervor
I’ve become accustomed to the wild intrusion
of chromosomes amalgamating me.
With self-centered satisfaction, my tightened thighs
reject the patterns of self-renunciation
between the palms of your hands.
All I need is your breath
to burst through
this autocratic nonentity.
All I need is your monosyllabic name
to tell black voices from white ones.
I do need your
disrobing hands
to accommodate a thousand years
in a single night.

 

February 6, 2009
Los Angeles
Translated by Samvel Mkrtchyan

 

For Sona

We were twins. You grew up for ten years while I was growing back, never coming of age. Actually, I like your growing up and my…..

Whenever I call on you

you shake your head

draining millions of brain cells

to make sure—or persuade—

that this is the last New Year of my wild life

that it’s high time

to grow up to be

woman

mother—

that next year we’ll be of the same age

to recall the nine months

when we lived

concurrently

in our mothers’ wombs. 

Sometimes you try to follow my tracks

but you have to admit you don’t get up enough nerve

and your ears turn deaf from the sound of breaking

(hence your recent dizziness)

You must admit I have a special gift

in finding outstanding friends

and losing them overnight—

you are well aware

why I write to you now

for you’ve heard a couple of minutes ago

the sound of my breaking in your dream.

November 9, 2011

Los Angeles

Translated by Samvel Mkrtchyan

Far, Far Away

Far

far away

a pair of hazel eyes

is contemplating longingly the road of homecoming.

In the same faraway lands

a man—a father—

is smiling

concealing in himself

some melancholy.

Here

my instants, arrested in the throat of boredom,

are groaning with the scattered memories of the past.

I pick a green apple from the plate

and start nibbling it

to make you beautiful.

I know

you, too,

will bequeath a smile

and a hazel gaze

in this cherished  space.

June, 2008

Los Angeles

Translated by Samvel Mkrtchyan

The Pomegranate

I lie upon the paved roadway of my fears

on the midnight stop

he

who appears only to cranes in their dreams

envelops my body

envelops my soul

with the fingers of his gaze.

Mounted upon the second hand

I’m climbing upstairs all the while

I know

I will meet him

seated on the next stair

with my blank notebooks

and Sergei’s* pomegranate in his hands.

November 2006

Tehran

Translated by Samvel Mkrtchyan

*Sergei Parajanov

The Sea Was Stolen

The sea was stolen

light traveling

the city was swept away by the wind

instruments resigned

the copious law of best wishes was cancelled.

no one being born

of Adam

Zeus anymore.

The earth languished

stripped

shrunk—

encompassed in a tiny piece of land

where my world was

that is, nowhere was

that is, that was the realm

of nowhere inhabitants—

it was my heart-gnawing

solitary ward.

May 2013

Los Angeles

Translated by Samvel Mkrtchyan

Genesis

They selected a man and a woman—a modest couple,

plucked his wings,

bade him to see the light of the world

and threw him down at 7 a.m. sharp.

Twenty-seven steps, all in all.

He knocked on the door

but there was no one inside

the couple had gone to a concert—

no time to give birth to him.

June 2006

Tehran

Translated by Samvel Mkrtchyan

When You Arrived

When you arrived

there was fresh wind in your palm—

the aged air

in my house

cowered for a moment

and left without clothes.

I delved into its pockets

only to discover

a pinch of a sun

the color of my days

whispers of a dear one’s shadow

and a stolen sea.

October 2005

Tehran

Translated by Samvel Mkrtchyan

When The Night

When the night

preserves my shadow as a manuscript

I will stretch out my hands

to pluck a dream from yesterday’s branches,

I will approach

your prehistoric—

and still newborn—waiting

to nourish your lonely moments.

Who knows maybe

this is going to please

my hesitation, grown so old.

May 2006

Tehran

Translated by Samvel Mkrtchyan

They Took My Love Away

Outside in the dark

a male corpse hanging from the stars

is sluggishly swaying

dancing death.

Smoke rising from the opposite house.

On a kitchen corner

a crime-breeding elegant hand

turns the corrupt juice of the forbidden fruit

into marmalade

singing

“they took my love away.”

February 2005

Tehran

Translated by Samvel Mkrtchyan

Do Write

Do write, he says,

how the sun fits 

in the little palms of a child’s hands.

Do write how the blue sky

intensifies still more

in black eyes.

No handful of wheat

in the sky’s corona;

no piece of sky on the table—

what’s  wrong with the mad poet?

Do write, he says,

while I hopelessly scratch

the face of this note paper

that is staring at me with his eyes.

March 2007

Tehran

Translated by Samvel Mkrtchyan

I Knew

I knew

I had put on my shoes the wrong way

I knew

one has to leave the red law

before taking up arms—

one has to live a little bit grey

to teem only in the sixth sense

to flee the after

to stick to the now.

Sometimes it’s spring

the bright green impedes

it revokes my wrong steps

leading me spontaneously

to the jagged blue.

I have to beg and plead

on my bended knees

until the autumn arrives—

I do surrender

just put me offside

but please

give the ball back to me.

September 2008

Los Angeles

Translated by Samvel Mkrtchyan

Through This Soggy Night

Through this soggy night

I am pleased only

with the meaningless crawl of snails

in the pouring rain

when I forget

to manage to produce something

before the rainbow unfolds.

The evening is moist

God is soaked too

hidden in the pages of the red book.

I’m trying to find Him

following the tracks of snails.

The evening is moist

and I, the deranged one,

am healing

my putrefied brain

with stale cigarettes

while the rain

is screwing my undefiled  lines

turning my song to a dirty ad.

December 2007

Los Angeles

Translated by Samvel Mkrtchyan

The Poet

The poet

who hadn’t died a long time

interred the sunless Orient

swallowed his smoke-filled tears

and looked down—

at the last moment.

The poet

who had forgotten his fate

scribbled colorful dreams

and died, silently,

from poetry’s disease.

April 10, 2007

Tehran

Translated by Samvel Mkrtchyan

Just Come

The sun

the sea

the hope

long for me

while I long for you.

Come home.

January 11 2009

Los Angeles

Translated by Samvel Mkrtchyan

For So Long...

For so long

my idle suitcase

has been beckoning me,

as if, at the last moment,

someone put secretly

a memory,

a voice,

an amulet in it.

I think

next time

I’ll be travelling

without valise.

June 2008

Los Angeles

Translated by Samvel Mkrtchyan

The Day’s Blunt Gape

The blunt day is staring at me. 

Boredom

dripping down my fingertips.

The ‘I’ rushing through my vocal chords

bangs against walls

and crumbles down

on my conquering soul.

You are so pleased

having made me your master—

estranged.

I wish I were your slave—

my way to happiness.

March 25, 2013

Los Angeles
Translated by Samvel Mkrtchyan

In Her Nights...

In her nights, devoid of tunes,

she would hear, time and again,

melodies

out of her empty palms

of her hands.

The translucent wrecks of her soul

are gazing at the instrument

from a usual corner—

fabricating a new serenade

out of these sapphire days.

Passionate palms hunting for hymns,

hunting for hymns.

She recollects

the fingers she has left

on the piano keyboard.

December, 2006

Tehran
Translated by Samvel Mkrtchyan