DOGS
Dogs
waifs, kicked out of doors
and other animals
we are your walking memories
on a spinning parchment.
THE SONG OF NAMES
In the 20th century
or any century
there are two types of names—
proper and common.
The proper names are those
that turn into
a promontory, a city, a street, a monument,
a park, a ship, a cake, et cetera,
for instance, Bering, Washington D.C., Peter the Great,
David of Sassoon, Napoleon, Josephine, and so on.
The common names are those
that turn into
earth,
for instance, our neighbor Artash “mauserist” of Kars
who used to repeat till his dying hour
“Skoro budet voyna”; karo the locomotive driver
who was really honored, or conductor haik the patriotic diasporan
who arrived in mother land in 1946—
and many others, the wonderful seven,
all the ranging gypsies, to name a few.
xception: since all the promontories,
cities, suburbs, streets, cakes, etc.,
originate from the earth,
all the proper names turn into common
and the other way around—they start to spin,
like the EARTH.
EMPTIED
I am emptied
like the empty globe
which I would beat
like a drum
emptied
like this vodka
which I drain
into my empty brain
emptied
like your empty bed
where I sleep
emptied.
MY PERFORATED HEAD
My perforated head
(600 holes in it)
perforated for you
my love
my perforated heart
for you
many times
my love
I came
to persuade you
a little
with this perforated head
that looks like grid to many
with this perforated heart
that has turned to raisin
in any stranger’s room
I came to demonstrate you all this
to make you realize
that the brain and the heart
are very expensive
but I gave them away to you
like a grid and a raisin.
Translated by Samvel Mkrtchyan
