HANGOVER
Lend me a hand, my dears and nears,
I have run out of my wine
in the cup of my three and thirty years.
I get sober from
the morning bolls; lend me a hand.
Does the wind blow late, or
Won’t your hand find me anymore?
I depart unhurriedly in a slow pace, of course.
Catch up with me, if you want to make me yours,
My body avoids warmness,
Burn it, if your faith is growing dim.
Don’t resent the locomotive hooter, but
disappoint from the sadness of the waves.
I am your secret dream. “To be nothing.”
I am your life’s presence in a bird.
Carry that cross—from your dear brothers and sisters.
Remember them with pleasure at leisure.
If it’s not late (it’s never late)
recall a piece of chalk
draw a deep blue sky one the wallpaper
of the world—and go for a walk.
NOWHERE
I built my house
on the foothill
The mountain gave way
And I am homeless, now.
I built my house
on a peaceful seashore,
There was a tempest, and
I am homeless, now
I built my house
by a virgin forest
There was a fire, and
I am homeless, now.
I built my house
in an abundant steppe
The land quivered, and
I am homeless, now.
I am homeless, now.
Homeless am I, now.
I have a home, though my
home is nowhere now.
THE SEVENTH DAY
The rest is silence—ever,
if death’s conceived whenever,
each next step doesn’t sever
from the former life whatever.
Each existing’s not life–never,
but it has to be lived over,
drunk from a cup of poison
as deep as the horizon.
And if there’s nothing in it,
the rest is the same as ever,
dope’s silence at this minute
conceived, as the pace, in a fever
of the one who lives—never…
AN OVERLY PERSONAL SONG
To write about love
is equal to paying
for the chill
and the dark,
the famine,
as well as friends
who have died with us
in the bed of stamina
during three months
of an ephemeral winter
of nineteen hundred
and ninety two
and nineteen hundred
of ninety three.
To write about love
is equal to re-writing
about an excessive
attenuation
of the poetized burgeoning
of the wind, spring, cloud,
flower, bird, light,
autumn, and the color of leaves.
To write about love
is equal to not writing
a terrific article
on the country’s political
social economic
deviations
of everyday route—
full of abbreviations
and favorably rewarded
and paid.
To write about love
is equal to noticing
all the particulars
of the plummet of the SELF—
to put then down
for the sake of
generations to come.
To write about love
is equal to not being
the TOMORROW of presaging
and swashbuckling time.
To write about love
is equal to sketching
a teapot,
another teapot, smaller,
still a smaller one—
a teapot
dreamed by
an off-the-wall
artist.
Translated by Samvel Mkrtchyan
