Helene Pilibosian from "With the Bait of Bread"

Click the link to hear With the Bait of Bread read by Lola Koundakjian.

Child, you were and
you learned to be.
For a while, Armenian was
a wish you could not fathom.
It is still a sea
and we fish in it for food
with the bait of forgotten bread.
The moon will be less specific
with the sun and the tides
if you wish it, Child.

You are yeast scattered upon
the ground and the rising dough
will grow into tomorrow.
You are the yeast of
your friends in one language
or another.
If not already, Armenian will
ring in one of your ears someday.


Copyright Helene Pilibosian

This poem was also published in Ararat Quarterly and in the Anthology of Magazine Verse & Yearbook of American Poetry, 1981. Reprinted here by kind permission of the author.

Helene Pilibosian: EARTHQUAKE MONUMENT

They ask me to be involved.
I send 50 blankets,
100 bars of unscented soap
and 1000 pencils for schoolchildren.
I can’t send my shock.
They ask me to shed tears.
My river overflows.
My dry eyes sigh.
My morning juice sours.
I see double sometimes.
They ask me to spread the word.
I type too fast.
My images are pasted on the past.
My daily trek is vexed.
Memory still consults my mind.
They want a monument.
Spitak and Gumri are still floss
on the mill of no response.
I hew names on the marble of thoughts.
This is too heavy to send.
They wish remembrance.
I name my poems for them.
I light 50,000 beeswax candles
in the church of national history.
My ideas are edged with commemoration.
They say I should listen.
The announcer of 1988 gave the news
loud enough for a century
of survivors and sympathizers.
I heard and continue to understand.

Time to turn from nature's mannerism, remembering earth is not an enemy; to recommend soil that gobbles seeds and gratifies us with plants; to plant our reprimands and gather the green of their leaves;
to suspend negative moments like dangling participles in a sentence;
to repair the crafts that need new glue, even flour mixed with water;
to repair ourselves and the twitch of face that happens after dearth;
to fill the lanterns outside ourselves with light and craved raves of esteem.


Copyright Helene Pilibosian
This poem appears by kind permission of its author.


Helene Pilibosian's work has recently appeared in such magazines as The Hampden-Sydney Poetry Review, Louisiana Literature, The Hollins Critic, North American Review, Seattle Review and is pending in Art Times. Some of her poems have won prizes or finalist status in competitions such as New Letters and Madison Review. She published her first book, Carvings from an Heirloom: Oral History Poems, in 1983, and the second, At Quarter Past Reality: New and Selected Poems, in 1998 under the imprint Ohan Press. The latter won an award from Writer’s Digest. Formerly she worked in journalism and editing at The Armenian Mirror-Spectator; now she is head of Ohan Press, a private bilingual micropress which has published seven books. The web site is at http://home.comcast.net/~hsarkiss.

Helene Pilibosian: Souvenir

Click to hear Souvenir read by Lola Koundakjian.

Did you bring me
a handful of soil from the homeland,
forgetting that it's earth
from the same planet as the American,
not Venus nor Mars
nor Saturn but only
dark soil with its own minerals--
the old kings and queens
still melting out memories
like party favors,
the sisters directing
the roundness of eternal bread,
the brothers coaxing the seeds
with unlearned plow and buffalo,
the merchants mingling
with magnificent ships?
Did you bring me
a hint of the breeze
that teased your hair
as no other breeze would dare
or the stares of the mountain paths
the Armenian aura
outlined with such clarity?
Did you bring me
that little bit of love
that boiled down from cooking
over the stove of history
in the clay pot of living?
Did you bring me the day
that sports debates of employment
and whistle-wails of work
or the night which highlights
an owl's or cat's eyes
prowling as animal rights,
their definition of the word
influenced by the heard,
the seen, the void, the tried?

The amber necklace you brought
reveals these passions congealed.


Copyright 2004 Helene Pilibosian

--
Helene Pilibosian is the author of two collections of poetry: Carvings
From an Heirloom and At Quarter Past Reality (a prizewinner) and has
many poems published in American literary journals such as the North
American Review, Willow Review and The Cape Rock. She is the owner of
Ohan Press whose bilingual website is at http://home.comcast.net/~hsarkiss