POETRY, 2002
1. Last Liturgy
2. Serene
3. Haiku
4. People shout at each other, as if they know, what it is -
justice...
5. If your smile disappears one day...
6. Today was a morning - to morning...
7. Lund at Night
8. He passes the places...
9. If you put your large piece of pizza...
10. There are moments in life...
11. Do you love the world you live in...
12. Myself a wonderer...
13. Beauty to Me
14. You told me once...
15. you waste yourself...
16. If you feel somebody...
17. Write something about life...
18. God gave me birth once...
19. It is appalling news...
20. The absence of pain is so fragile...
21. You are trying continuously...
22. Whims of love
23. I want you to embrace me...
24. You pass again my home, unseen...
25. Schlaining-Lund (For Karen)
1. Last Liturgy
The Earth cries out in despair,
With dreadful eyes it looks around:
There’s so little left to spare,
Who can be whipped for that or bound?
If Beauty seeks refuge in garlands,
Pretending blind, but badly wounded -
Let not us hide in shrieking silence,
Let not subdue to being hounded.
Which of the senses claims forgiveness?
When foliage dies, who buries ashes?
Without smoke who needs the chimneys,
Or stormy sea without splashes?
Let not the blasphemous intruder
Awaken Nature's last convulsion.
His crash could never be but smoother
Than Earth with groaning repulsion.
2. Serene
Your only name, your only sigh,
Your hugeness fills the gaps of darkness.
Your breath, like wind, will never die,
On day of thunder, storm and lightning.
Your palm will shadow from heat,
Your eyes will give no sign of fear.
With no reason to retreat
The day will gently disappear.
And creatures, out in the space,
Will fly and reach the edge of Ever.
The planet with rotating pace
Will leave the universe forever.
3. Haiku
Your moon is hanging
I try to catch its blue light
But it slips away.
* * *
River is fragile
Snow melts into the water
It hurts the river
* * *
You spread your colours
And I perceive them fully
You are perfect, God.
People shout at each other, as if they know, what it is - justice.
They try to prove others that there exist many ways of problem solution, but
they do not see the core of the problem: their own faults.
People move stones from mountains to build houses, but they do not realize,
that roofs cannot replace mountains.
People drink waters of the lakes, but one day the lake will dry... their
thirst will become stronger.
People know the parts of the world, their geographic position, their climate,
but they do not know who created the world.
Let them find out the truth and say an appraisal to it.
Let them then bow to the Creator and be forgiven.
If your smile disappears one day
I will lose the sense of direction
And will switch off the sun
I will stumble on the smoothest of the ways
And will not wish to taste the sweetest of the honeys
My steps will resemble the ones of a wounded beast
My eyes will see the darkest spots in the purest creatures
I will start passing out gradually
Please, smile forever...
Today was a morning - to morning,
Today was a day - to day,
Today will come a night - to night,
And you will be the only one
Who has ever been informed
And will ever be informed
About such stupid and clever miracles
As living, and dying, and smiling
Because you're yet the only one
Who can watch my day and laugh
Instead of crying and blaming myself
For wasting the treasures of the daylight
And spending the best years of life
On dark curtains, endless row of books
And innumerable calls from non-friends
Who are aware of my hobby - conversing
You will laugh, because you're my own reflection
In the mirror by the night table where I put
All the things I need at night - pencils,
Glass of water, a thick book without text - blank,
A telephone receiver and photo-album,
And sometimes some medicine against headache...
You live in that mirror and laugh at my faults.
I am so grateful to you for that.
7. Lund at Night
Through the daytime light
it seems tiny and full -
the night turns its diminutiveness
into a mysterious space -
dark yet dimly lit,
it resembles the chorus
on the backstage - the important
but modestly shaded component
of the performance.
The cosiness of the streets
acquires a special colour - the colour of night,
mixed with the yellowish shop-windows,
greenish pubs and different shades of the brown-gray.
It has nothing of the brightness
the big cities sparkle with:
advertisement sheets, illuminations -
simplicity of noble lanterns
makes a touching composition
with the full moon, or, more often,
its complete absence.
No cars - almost. A few bikers.
Quietness intermingles with the sounds,
echoing from pubs and night cafes,
very few and usually packed.
Heart beating becomes
an inseparable sound of the nightlife -
one does hear it.
The pulse on the arm - in tact with the town pulse:
no hurry at all, time is at your disposal.
You need not squeeze it, you can strain it endlessly,
and still find some remains.
Forget-me-not, says the flower...
I won't ...ever..., murmurs a passer-by,
a casual pedestrian, an unknown guest of the night
on a small spot of the earth...
Forget-me-not...
8.
He passes the places
As others pass their years.
He doesn't keep diaries,
He doesn't take photos.
This symbolic existence
Becomes his daily obsession,
He treats his own «self»
As a reflection in the rain puddle.
Who can stretch a hand for help?
Who can make his life more meaningful?
If the birds stop singing,
Will he become more unfortunate?
If you put your large piece of pizza
Back on the plate for a while,
Maybe you will hear my words,
Trying to penetrate into your mind.
Maybe you will see the flash of my eyes,
When I look at you, reading letters
Sent once by me, so long ago.
If you put away your glass of juice,
I will be able to present you
With an unforgettable taste of nectar,
I will dance the taste of the spring
And will turn into the summer heat,
If you only put away your book for a while
And take off that ugly hat,
I will see your eyes more clearly
And will smell your short brown hair
Just before you go to take shower.
If you close the window,
You will hear me better,
And the wind, a cruel rival,
Will not steal away part of my words
On its rapid wings.
If you only... only loved me a little.
There are moments in life
When things cease to matter.
Such moments are rare and valuable,
But they cause the worst of the pain.
When sun burns with its utmost heat,
When you hold a hand
And it becomes the most precious thing in the world,
When the degree of despair is uncountable,
Yet there seems to be no grief acknowledging it.
Thus comes the solemnity of the most banal paradox-
The intermingling of the purity with evil,
Life with death,
Scorn with excitement.
Memory turns into a petal and drops…
The minute passes away…
New life begins.
Do you love the world you live in?
Have you ever caught your own mind on despising it?
If yes, have you ordered yourself
Immediately to stop it?
No? Then don’t you think you still lead a hidden hypocrisy?
Myself a wonderer,
I always loved them -
Shabby, with searching eyes,
Curious, miserable at times,
Shadowy, like ghosts,
Proud in their purity of mind -
Beggars.
13. Beauty to Me
Beauty to me is red,
Drinking the dew from poppies -
Breathing gentle narcotics,
Flying with ladybird.
Beauty to me is red.
Beauty to me is white,
Bridal imagination -
Purity smells carnation.
Churches - eternal light.
Beauty to me is white.
Beauty to me is blue,
Sea in the sky’s reflection,
Moonstone without fractions -
Born as it is, not glued.
Beauty to me is blue.
Beauty to me is black,
Smoggy deserted towns,
Masks on the gloomy clowns,
Pearls on mulatto’s neck.
Beauty to me is…blank.
You told me once,
That starlessness cures insomnia.
Well, I blinded all the stars
But stayed awake.
Perhaps it was the punishment
For my impudence,
And a mere indulgence,
That I was saved from death.
If so, then I should appreciate it,
Perhaps…
I could not…
I continued to seek feverishly
All the possible ways to switch off my mind
And plunge into darkness.
I had no more stars
To distract my painful attention -
Yet I had them in my memory.
And I started counting them,
The poor victims of my selfishness.
There were millions of them,
Sparkling accusingly and being
So better than me in their innocence.
Why have you ever told me
That starlessness cures insomnia?
you waste yourself
on words
and become a long sentence
for the deaf
a crooked reproach
for the blind
an absolute nonsense
for the insane
If you feel somebody
inside yourself
gnawing your intestines
and biting a piece of your heart
do not become a victim
of false suppositions of pregnancy
it may once devour you
and live your life instead…
If you feel the pain
being the cause of your nightmares
change the tape of the consciousness
uncover your soul
get hold of the beast inside you
and look into its eyes:
if you see emptiness there -
do away with it
and if you see your own reflection…
then…then I ‘m not your advisor.
Write something about life -
You will ask me one day.
It will probably be one of the quiet evenings
When the nature dives into the sunrays
And present itself to its utmost -
Then you are mostly inclined
To philosophical talks.
I will not answer to your request
Because I always write about life,
Regardless of the form
In which I present my writings:
Not necessarily poetry but lines
Without beginning or end.
You will nevertheless ask me
To write about life - maybe something new,
That has not been written yet,
But of course whatever one writes
Is new…at least for him.
You never knew what I expected from life,
And I will never betray myself -
Neither in dreams or under my pen
One will see or hear
Words of confession…
Who said once,
That art and life
Cannot coexist?
God gave me birth once
and seated me on the leaf
of a big plantain
I grew up and turned into
the original image
given to the first human maid -
Eve
What are my further doings?
It is appalling news!
you will say
and make a phone-call
to your close friend
to spread the rumour
she will in her turn
call her close friend
and they will all
in their turn
call their closest friends
until one day
you will receive a phone-call
from one of your close friends
with that appalling news
which by that time
you will have forgotten about
and then you will take the phone-receiver….
The absence of pain is so fragile, that, being afraid of destroying it, I clinch my fists and try to memorize every second of its peacefulness. Then it gives way to pain again and, unable to touch my own fingers, I perceive them as bearers of unknown strength and energy. And I leave them clinched, my teeth shivering, my eyes wide open, and my mind occupied by the most impossible of the dreams: to start living in memories, memories of the fragile absence of pain.
You are trying continuously
to reach for life
and you don’t mind
all the obstacles on your way.
Some people admire your stubbornness,
others gossip, that you are a failure.
You don’t mind them, either.
You scrawl on your knees,
jump as high as your feet can lift you,
run as long as there is a road ahead,
with widely stretched arms,
ready to grasp it - the life.
Sometimes, of course, it passes by, unnoticed,
because of your high speed,
but the main thing is, that you believe in success.
Keep on going, just slow down a bit
and turn round when you hear a cuckoo;
when you see the sunset, stop and glorify it;
when you are freezing at night, light a fire under the moon;
when the sun burns, jump into the sea to cool down;
when people drink toasts, join them.
And the road will wait…
Don’t run all the time.
22. WHIMS OF LOVE
She loved him. He used to sleep under the bridges of Paris, the city of lovers. She did not know about it. She believed in love as the highest of all the virtues. Pure. Beautiful. It excluded poverty, as poverty was beyond beauty to her.
He loved her. She was from a family of a prosperous tradesman. He never revealed to her his origin. His father had been murdered for robbery. His mother died as a prostitute. He earned his living by selling drugs. Sometimes he slept in luxurious hotels, more often - by the Seine.
Their love towards each other was strange, mysterious, they met in her house, twice a month, he brought her flowers, generally from the cemeteries, she adored him, and never noticed they were faded. He excused his inability to meet more frequently by different tales, each time more and more unrealistic, veiled with fantastic and courageous adventures, which she inhaled as the drugs he sold.
Once he was found killed under the bridge. She was in a shock. People said it was an accident She could easily believe it, he had no reason to be killed. She went to mourn him to the cemetery, to the newly dug grave. There she found flowers, the same ones he used to bring her. She paid no attention, just recalled the familiar smell.
The next month she fell in love again. He was the son of a diplomat. He considered her lower than himself and was ashamed to bring her into the family. She was happy with him. They met twice a month, and he excused his being absent by different, weak arguments. He had mistresses. She did not know about them. One day he was found killed, they said it was a case of jealousy. She whipped by his grave for a week, and went abroad.
She got married with a simple honest man, who loved her. She loved him at first, but later she became bored. He was too simple for her, too straight. She started to come home late at night; sometimes she did not come at all. He became worried. She explained her absences by the fact that she had to help her ill friend to run the house and take care of the children. He believed her. She abused his feelings and trust. One day she was found killed. He was arrested. He swore that he did not kill her. He was unhappy to lose both her and his freedom.
There was nobody to whip at her grave.
Fall 2002, Austria
I want you to embrace me
And squeeze me in your arms
So that I can feel the smell of your thoughts
And suffer from the pain in my bones.
I want you to embrace me
Until I start suffocating
And seeing stars instead of your coal-eyes
I want to touch your dark hair with the end of my nose
So that my breathing becomes fuller and deeper
So that your and my own self do not recognize each other
But become one inseparable soul
I want you to stop looking at me like that
Because I am becoming too weak
Because I am loosing some parts of my existence, of my identity
I want you to stop seeking my company
October 2002, Austria
You pass again my home, unseen,
Without the gloves you touch the snow…
…And I become aware of the very core
of your existence,
of your frozen lips in the biting wind,
of your thin fingers, red and aching,
your childish beard, soft and smelling milk.
I become yourself,
after the wind bites my cheeks
and the snowflakes melt on my eye-lashes.
You cover my existence with your heavy
and unflattering truth,
with your young and yet so strong body,
you prove me your own fragility.
That was long, long ago.
Now I am an old writer who dreams of the past.
I squeeze my memories
into a short-line phrase
and publish them on the leaves of the trees.
Let the wind spread them away,
Maybe somewhere in a remote corner
you will catch them and sail for a new journey.
This time you will find my house
not in snow, but in flowers.
I planted them long ago,
But you did not come.
Flowers are still there, fading and blossoming.
They are waiting for you.
November 2002, Austria
25. Schlaining-Lund
For Karen
Your little town, my tiny village,
We dream the same, we wish the same.
I call you, as I used to, ‘miliy’,
You smile and swallow drops of rain.
I call you, as I used to, darling,
You put aside your books and pen.
My face is just the same - non-smiling,
So easy to remember then.
You breath the Swedish cold, I know,
I walk in Austrian lovely woods,
Your cradle-song is flakes of snow,
I sleep without any mood.
You are in Lund, so far, so near,
One day, two hours, one glance.
Too far to smell, to touch, to hear,
And I perform… my lonely dance.
2002 November, Austria
| Acknowledgements: |
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| Published with
the permission of the author. © by Sara Margaryan |
| See also: |
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Sara Margaryan's poetry in Armenian | in Russian |