Bedros Afeyan: Textures at an Excavation

In the museum of life still labeled framed
I stand with a rusty spout leaking

In the garden of life snakes coil around trees I covet
Cradle conceive and deceive for mere profit

On an island of sound I dangle from trees
To swing with dreams chiseled in brass laced tempi
Mounting melancholy meager eager fissile remedy

On an ocean wave deafening to break
I find my confessor and spray my story
The agony of a board cracked in two
My dry suit betrays its name thrice
Before the rooster chimes the church bells
Ringing the Sun’s monotheistic mourners adieu

Saturday evening in the park with Modeste
I begrudge a troubadour cooling his feet in a fountain
Collecting abandoned good-luck penny draped resolutions
To guzzle down with beers screaming neon lights blinking
NY obscenities in coarse visual Morse code
The gasping last breaths of redolent ducks
Hanging in rows from hooks basted in Salmonella amandine
Humming motors idling, honking, suffocating undeserted heat.


Bedros Afeyan
4-19-2009
Davies Symphony Hall