Michael Minassian: BROKEN PROMISES

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BROKEN PROMISES read by the author, Michael Minassian.

Let me take you
to a stone altar
somewhere north of
Arabia

on the road
to Holy Russia
we stop to
loot & plunder

the sands of dry
river beds.

Let me bring you
dark delights
in palaces of pleasure
which disappear

each dawn
with the cracking sun.

Let me take you
to black tents
fluttering
in the desert wind

to hard rides
on camels –
changing horses
on the plains
of Asia Minor

arriving finally
at the base
of Mt. Ararat

to old men
selling splinters
of wood

pieces of the Ark.


Let me take you
where the ancient grasses
keep their own secrets

to the lakes & seas
of Armenia

& tell you tales
of massacres
while we eat
purple grapes
in the foothills.

Let me sing you songs
of love & freedom
of men who escaped
across the ocean

to wind up
the lonely dead
in Boston & Manhattan

who never forgot
the broken promises
or the words
that brought them there.

Let me take you
to streets
paved of gold

on the other side
of rainbows –
to tattoos
in the sky

where the wind
speaks in broken
English.

Copyright Michael Minassian

THIS POEM FIRST APPEARED IN ARARAT MAGAZINE IN SPRING - 1976 and appears here by kind permission of the author.