Anny-Rose Nahapetian: I'm a happy person in my Armenian dreams

I dreamt again.
Clothes in a plastic bag
and my mother at the kitchen table
cutting a chicken in half

I dreamt again.
And I said to my self uncooked meat
in a dream is not a good sign.
But my mother was in my dream,
that could be good sign.

My aunty used to say that
if you dream of your mother,
you should be happy.

I'm dreaming of my mother
for such a long time,
I should be a happy person
because it is a good sign.
Am I ?
Or is this just an Armenian dream ?

Anny-Rose Nahapetian, April 1st, 2007
This poem appears by kind permission of its author.

AnnyRose Nahapetian: Բացակայ/Absent

If you are forced to leave your homeland -- part of you stays behind
Your childhood, street, school, your red kite

It's illusive, like not willing to die

You are lying dead but you rise and you turn in order to look to yourself
Do you recognize You?
You ramify in thousand memories, thousand dreams

Very often you stick to the memories

To the moments that sometimes are a dream

Dreams which are so close that they look like reality

Or reality so far that it looks like a dream

You loose connection
In dissension
You are split in a thousand branches

No matter why, there is always a gap, a distance

There is always someone who is not there

You look in to the hollow, colors are recognizable,
but often not matching with the smell

The albums are full of pictures, and the apostle gifts are often kept unused
Envelops, the letters...... The stamps, the smell of old leather of a purse
and note books that belonged to Mum or Dad


All pieces are kept so well, because each piece has
the soul of a beloved one.

A colored hollow.


AnnyRose Nahapetian
Dedicated to, "Layered Lives: "Iranian Armenian Identity Through Contemporary Arts",
Amsterdam. 2005