Poemsof2007

Indifference

By Shant Norashkharian

“Indifference--

A house stuffed with ice,

Filled with snow.

Indifference--

A house not for living

But for freezing in.

The cellar. A plush vault.

Indifference. A house.

Dusty bread and boxes.

Crusts, dead birds, combings, leftovers.”

Dmitry Bobyshev (b. 1936)

Translated by Daniel Weissbort

One tiny candle at a time

Flame by flame

We die!

One bouquet at a time

We lose the will

To give more flowers!

One degree at a time

Our body temperature

Sinks down!

One syllable at a time

Our sound waves fade

Into infinity!

One dream at a time

On a little bird

Falls down!

One NO at a time

Builds the ice inside

For endless winter!

One dust particle

And many more

Erase our names!

All around us

Nothing

But leftovers!

We are preludes

With promises

And rude endings!

We are shadows

Cast on the way

Of cold glances!

We wait for the wind

Which never returns

To the same place!

And we say goodbye

When a stranger

Carries us away!

Crescent City, California

May, 2006-January, 2007

"Music is enough for a lifetime, but a lifetime is not enough for music."

"I try to make my music speak simply and directly that which is in my heart at the time I am composing. If there is love there, or bitterness, or sadness, or religion, these moods become part of my music, and it becomes either beautiful or bitter or sad or religious. For composing music is as much a part of my living as breathing and eating. I compose music because I must give expression to my feelings, just as I talk because I must give utterance to my thoughts."

Sergei Rachmaninoff

"Flee, my friend, into thy solitude: I see thee stung all over by the

poisonous flies. Flee thither, where a rough, strong breeze bloweth!

Flee into thy solitude! Thou hast lived too closely to the small and

the pitiable. Flee from their invisible vengeance! Towards thee they

have nothing but vengeance.

Raise no longer an arm against them! Innumerable are they, and it is not thy lot to be a fly-flap.

Innumerable are the small and pitiable ones; and of many a proud

structure, rain-drops and weeds have been the ruin.

Thou art not stone; but already hast thou become hollow by the

numerous drops. Thou wilt yet break and burst by the numerous drops.

Exhausted I see thee, by poisonous flies; bleeding I see thee, and

torn at a hundred spots; and thy pride will not even upbraid.

Blood they would have from thee in all innocence; blood their

bloodless souls crave for- and they sting, therefore, in all

innocence.

But thou, profound one, thou sufferest too profoundly even from

small wounds; and ere thou hadst recovered, the same poison-worm crawled over thy hand.

Too proud art thou to kill these sweet-tooths. But take care lest it

be thy fate to suffer all their poisonous injustice!"

Friedrich Nietzsche

A Dream Within A Dream

By Shant Norashkharian

*To my sweet little sick girl Sophia*

“I stand amid the roar

Of a surf-tormented shore,

And I hold within my hand

Grains of the golden sand-

How few! yet how they creep

Through my fingers to the deep,

While I weep- while I weep!

O God! can I not grasp

Them with a tighter clasp?

O God! can I not save

One from the pitiless wave?

Is all that we see or seem

But a dream within a dream?”

Edgar Allan Poe

(1809-1849)

You were there when I wept alone

As the shadows were getting longer!

Stay a little…!

You were there when we slept in a cave

To be sheltered from the ice made by men!

Stay a little…!

You were there when the dinner table fed the fire

And the plates were stored and forgotten!

Stay a little…!

You were there when the wine became my tyrant

After it promised to be my friend!

Stay a little…!

You were there when I read in your eyes

The love letters of a distant world!

Stay a little…!

You were there when all who passed by

Ignored the lamp on my porch!

Stay a little…!

There are so few left in my hand!

O God! Can I keep at least you?

Stay a little…!

Crescent City, California

January, 2007

MY FUNERAL

By S. Norashkharian

"No wealth nor beauty nor love could justify the misery of this broken existence..”.

An excerpt from a Suicide Note

“Can I ever forgive this earth for counting me among its own, but only as an intruder?”

Emile M. Cioran

"the scent of fresh flowers

lingered within the crowd of mourners

sullen faces floating

amid the humid air... sobbing

burdened eyes met halfway

in cold and blank stares

the heavy casket

descended slowly... quietly

for a while

the irrational silence was broken

followed by muffled footsteps

drifting... vanishing ...

Emile M. Cioran

Go away and take away your flowers!

There is no funeral here for walking corpses!

I shall sleep on the warm ash while you weep

For a man you never knew and never should know!

Here my ash will give up its whiteness

Like a cloud held hostage to the sun!

And I will rise with it higher to my home

Where my name is placed well beyond your reach!

Here in the cemetery was I born

And all I know is what I learned from the dead!

So let the living go down on their knees

And hold their tongues when the dead speak!

Here is the music which took breath in me

To become an endless symphony!

Here I became the vessel for those greater than me

And not one of you shall dare to block its way!

There is no funeral here so go away!

The smell of your new black shoes makes me dizzy!

No more will you walk with them inside of me

Or peek into my soul with your dirty eyes!

And your beliefs which you wear like rented suits

Take them away and pass them on to your clones!

Every time I extended my hand to you

It became cold like the morning frost!

I was born in the cemetery

Where I lived among the dead

Who sheltered me from your indifference

And gave me the home I never had!

Now I am reduced down to what you are

Just a random pile of chemical compounds!

Two dollars and fifty three cents

Will buy me on the open market!

I now carry the disease of your species

And my cure is in the forest you destroyed!

There is no funeral here so go away!

Whoever held my hand when it counted is with me!

Dayton, OH, USA

June, 2007

"Mankind became so enthusiastic about progress, pushing forward with it since the Age of Enlightenment, but in reality all mankind has won is spiritual emptiness. Techonological advances, only technology, civilisation, give-me-all, all the goods, internet, the stream of information leaves no more air to breathe, the heart goes empty, the soul is empty, death is terrifying, nowhere to go..."

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

1998 Interview