Announcing the winner of the 7th “Arthur Halvajian Memorial” Armenian Poetry Competition - Adult category

 The winner is Michael Minassian of Charlotte, NC. Congratulations!

TWELVE VIEWS OF MT. ARARAT

I

From my exile

across the border,

I see Ararat

through the parting clouds

above Yerevan:

the blue sky splits –

window panes shatter –

         shards fly

across the horizon.

Rain, then sunlight

falls upon the piano

         dappled

black & white keys:

dual cones –

arpeggio of mountains.

II

I fall asleep

in the laundromat

& dream of a hand

         emerging

from the firmament,

kneading the mountains,

seeding the clouds;

whose whistling do I hear

as I awaken?

whose sins are being washed?

III

“My eyes are on fire,”

my grandmother always said.

(an Armenian idiom

that defies translation).

My eyes are on fire,

         Ararat;

I have glimpsed

your flaming vulva

the magma of your crowning birth.

IV

I see Ararat

captured in Ani’s eyes:

she parts her crimson lips,

opens her mouth to sing –

light as air,

she slides from beneath me

and brushes her hair

front and back

in a mirror turned towards

         the sky

like cicadas trapped

far from mountain or tree

amid the sunken ruins

of an ancient

         abandoned city.

V

Ararat:

         I found you sleeping

         inside an ancient white shell –

at Easter time    

my mother

would save one egg

for each year,

placing it in a bowl

in the curio cabinet

near the front door –

dried seed

of blood’s dawn.

VI

Ararat:

if I laid your body

flat on the earth,

your groin and head

would stretch across

the plains and rivers

stabbing Asia

like an archaic word:

caravan, oasis, tapestry,

spun silk sword.

VII

Ararat:

         I see your architecture

older than Athens

or Rome;

older than Babylon’s

towers and spires;

older than words

this tongue could form –

your cuneiform crown.

VIII

Ararat:

         I dream of you:

I am obsessed

w/ your stones, your snow

your volcanic voluptuousness.

I am possessed by your

nouns and verbs,

your personal pronouns.

I am in love with

your catechisms, your catalogues

your indescribable and infinite

solidity and structure.

IX

Ararat:

Will you press

your mouth to my ear?

will you press your ear

to my chest?

will you be silent

for the beating of my heart

and the roaring of the clouds

as they stray beneath

your summits –  

your sharp-tipped

         forked tongue.

X

Ararat:

         what were you called

before man named you?

Before words existed

for stone & fire

or mountain & ocean.

         What name did you call

your creator?

what name did she call you?

XI

Ararat:

the human body

has 206 bones:

how many bones

lie beneath your rubble, rock, and ice?

how many centuries

will you hold your secrets?

The human heart

has no bones;

love has no skeleton;

forgiveness not made of flesh.

  

XII

Ararat:

        

         I find a postcard

with your photograph

taken over a hundred years ago –

you have not changed.

On the back,

in black ink

a message is scrawled

in Armenian letters

I cannot read;

                                                                

now slightly smeared

by tears or rain

they lie curled

like ancient fruit

in a paper coffin:

        

this confluence of time

and science

sadness or weather –

         your unmarked grave.