Monday, June 02, 2025

Sotère Torregian: Vision Quest

For Yeghishe Charents (1897–1937) 
and 
in Memoriam, Diana Der Hovanessian (1934-2018)

mais c'est moi qui  leur réclame mon trésor volé
Le Rebelle, from Et les chiens se taisaient   
Tragédie par Aimé Césaire

Yet again une autre fois I speak
to you O Heart of A Lion you are ever remembered
Your heart still beats its rhythm within me
and in every Armenian still
What can Poetry declare
about you your dreams your hopes your love
for a homeland to welcome the dispossessed
There are days I do not know
where or why I am
as I gaze out of my window
as a virtual prisoner here in this home

watching
folks out there pass by
as if sleepwalking or in a cloud
The drums of Africa beat inside me

calling still in this dépaysement
         --AWAKE ! -- ARM !-- REVOLT !

As you called from your prison-cell to your people
themselves downtrodden and confined
not only by dictators
but by superstition also and suspicion
of each other Vanetsti and Bitlistsi !

Yet here is yesterday today and tomorrow residing
as one within the soul
of the Poet's
         Vision - quest for a new life
for all of man -and -womankind
         and that of the world that would be
as was once proclaimed the kingdom of God on Earth

  Sotère (L'Inconnu )
  17 mai 2025






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