Arto Vaun: X

Somewhere in my grandmother's apartment there is a photograph:
Two infant boys, around 1945 or so, although it looks more like 1920

There are looking at the camera the way children used to --
Already sullen adult gazes, dressed in white frilly gowns

My two uncles -- they sit together with an understanding
That they shall not inherit the earth, but die in a few weeks

From malnutrition and insufficient medical care -- look closer
And you can see they are fading right in your hand

My grandparents, resilient granite angels, could not talk
About this one thing -- they themselves were children

When they buried their own, left them in a small Armenian cemetery
Leaving one land not theirs to another not theirs to another not theirs

America, your homeless are not the beggars and street people --
They are the hop-scotching peasants whose nations are anxious myths now

The crowd asks
What did you expect going out alone like that --

History wears pantyhose over its head and gets away with murder every time




From Capillarity, Carcanet, 2009.

Arto Vaun: IV

One day I woke up unlike other wakings
And saw my hands for the first time as though they had sprouted
Overnight, while I was missing you again -- my open palm and branched fingers
In the smudged morning light

I looked at what seemed a memory or shy wolf
That toils without asking for much except to eat and be taken seriously--
                My hands were severe then

What is the elastic that tightens in the body when you forget to let go
                Or be let go of --




From Capillarity, Carcanet, 2009.

Arto Vaun: Singed Bedroom, Weekend Afternoon

I painted the walls plum and hung sheer

Curtains so when they caught fire from the atoms

Rushing from my body this afternoon

It was the loveliest thing I had seen

The rain came down like a song as I was

Disintegrating seamlessly all electric soft colors

I turned into something solar and crackling

Watching from my twin bed

How I wanted to reach out to my own going

As a spirit might want to examine itself in a photo

Barely present in a spot of faded yellow light

Looking hard squinting and asking Is that me

This poem has previously appeared in Glimpse.

Arto Vaun reading (video)

Click to watch the poet reading his work.

Arto Vaun is the author of Capillarity and lives in Massachusetts.