Krikor Der Hohannesian: Small Deaths

a phone call in the middle of the night,
the son of a best friend – words
choked by the heave of sobs
erupting from his belly – his father,
a sudden death, and the air whooshes
from my lungs, but no words come…

or others, friends you once
danced and sang with,
still on this earth but many
now lame or raspy-voiced

and you, sister, children
a continent away, living
with angst and two Abyssinians
your comfort at night

or you, brother, your gait
shuffled by the disease
that one day not so distant
has claim on you

or you, dearest, your mother’s
ship long since having left port
on a tide of dementia and you
on the shore still waving
safe journey, safe journey…

and so I watch the insults
pile up and give them names,
like “Arthur” for arthritis, “Nolan”
for no language as I search
for a lost word, “Stenny” for stenosis
when my legs don’t work quite right.

All this we might call aging,
these losses one by one,
or we might call them small deaths,
a collective prelude, as if one’s own demise
will be the symphony of all symphonies.

Previously published in Red River Review

Krikor N. Der Hohannesian: Elegy

Old Granary, graveyard

of loyalists and revolutionaries,
merchants and mercenaries,
poets and philistines.

Their gravestones, frost-heave skewed
cock deaf ears to the cacophony
of human industry. But listen…

in the wind shadows of ancient elm and maple

and you may hear it…

the wispy, low keening
of founding ghosts
mourning the sins of us,
their promise. Take heed,
take heed they whisper – refuge

from their judgment elusive as grace
for the inattentive, redemption
for the sinner drawing raspy breath
only in the listening …

Boston, Mass.

Krikor Der Hohannesian lives in Medford, MA. He serves as Assistant Treasurer of the New England Poetry Club.

Krikor N. Der Hohannesian: TAVLOU

O grand ancient game, upholder of
family honor, Judas to reputations. Your
board a replica of Byzantine splendor, in-laid
mother-of-pearl, Javan teak points, die of
African ivory – we learned your caprices early,

toughened our psychic skins against barrages
of insults, learned to play fast and snap
the checkers, memorized Turkish terms –
shesh besh,, penge u du, du barrah –
called with each throw. Curse the dice
for ill fortune, but count out your move
and you were unworthy. Uncle fixed me

with baleful stare the first time I took
his measure. Father swore he would never
play me again. Hairig, grandfather so gentle,
once bit the dice in frustration. Mother
at 92 took me – a wry smile in victory
and she was gone a week later.


This poem has previously appeared in Ararat Magazine and The MacGuffin.

Krikor N. Der Hohannesian: EXECUTION

Hrant Dink, in memoriam

They snuffed him – Turkish style,
a teeming street in Istanbul
three bullets, back of the brain,
point-blank, draped his corpse
in white shroud weighted
with bricks at four corners,
left him lying there for gawkers-
to what end? Horror? Or the mute message,
This Is What You Get for Being Un-Turkic?


Like you, hairig, he was a journalist
a life’s quest of opening doors
to blackened rooms where
suffering abides, where grudges
are held tight to pained hearts,
where decades later old wounds still fester.

And we stand, unable to pity the assassin
or forgive his maniacal hatred, waiting
for light to dawn on the lightless.

Krikor N. Der Hohannesian: EVEN IN DREAMS

Away with these dreams!
Manichean midnight intrusions
whipsawing the psyche
in epic battles of good
against evil, light over dark.

I have played all the roles-
Quixote on a white colt, lance
held high, fear not my people! Or

innocent caught in the cross-fire,
at the mercy of the dogs of war,
fangs bared, eyes red with blood lust.

I am Solomon in the midst of carnage,
cooing the wisdom of doves into
ears deafened by battle’s roar. Or,

best of all, I am bloodthirsty avenger
hard at the throats of Ottoman hordes,
no quarter given!

My people, my people!
Even in dreams, the battles, never
enough to expunge the nightmare
nor resurrect the million souls
stomped lifeless like despised vermin.


This poem has previously appeared in Aries Journal.

Krikor N. Der Hohannesian: LOVE SPELL

Some things are indelible,
like India ink, not just on paper
but on the parchment of the soul.
If you are one of the fortunate
the imprint is early etched. I sat

beside him, his well-scarred desk,
the green-shaded lamp, watched him
dip the nib into the black well,
scratch out his Baikar editorials,
his poems, his short stories
in Mesrob Mashtots’ script -
letters of the Armenian alphabet,
exotic, ancient, cryptic. Mashtots,

ascetic Armenian monk, his life’s work
to translate the Bible into the tongue
of his people after a vision, it was said,
where the hand of God revealed the alphabet,
the written word birthed in letters of fire.

Spell my name, hairig, I asked, and with
a flourish of a conductor’s baton he
dipped the pen. Spell “love”, grandpa,
I want to see what it looks like. He smiled
with his eyes, tousled my thick, black hair –
janig (dear one), he whispered.


This poem has appeared in Atlanta Review.

Krikor N. Der Hohannesian: THE CHERRY TREE

Aintab, Cilicia

Forgotten corner of the caliphate,
mother’s birthplace, she
uprooted at two, a tramp steamer
to Salonika - otherwise another statistic
in the million and a half or, worse,
a concubine in some pasha’s seraglio.

Cousin Anahid went back,
the family home survives .
She is eager to describe. Her mother
made the trip at 100, her voice
awash in weeping the entire stay.

Don’t tell me, I plead.
The pomegranate trees, the bushes
hunched with pistachios, the smell of lamb
spit-roasted, the line dancing,
the happy voices –
it all disappears if you tell me.

Pamuk says Armenian houses in Kars
are ghost houses, haunted by specters
that wail bloody murder. One by one
the last of those who survived April, 1915,
pass on – the thread frays to a wisp.

Five decades I have pondered going back,
wondering if I would spit on the first Turk I saw,
Tell me to my face you still deny it! Tell me!

But I fear the ghosts. I fear mourning
what was never mine , the sadness
I have no right to feel - it belongs to hairig and nene.

Instead, with those who survive
I leave instructions: till my ashes
into the patch at Mt. Auburn
where their bones molder.
Wait ‘til April, I say, the cherry tree
rooted to their graves
will be in full bloom then.


This poem has previously appeared in Main Street Rag.

Krikor N. Der Hohannesian: THE SECRET

Ժամանակին կար ու չկար
(a long time ago there was and there wasn’t)

Always in whispers among the elders,
the unspeakable, the weight
of Ararat atop a mystery
not for public consumption.

Old Armenian men, hunched
on cane-backed chairs,
drinking Turkish coffee in dim,
smoke-blue cafes - sotto voce
exchanges punctuated
by a knowing nod or
arched eyebrow. Gazes
wandered, eyes now and
then misting over…

Hairig refusing to speak English,
Nene helpless to control the spit
which spewed from her mouth
when uttering the “T-word”, rubbing
her nose still unable to rid
the stench of rotting corpses
piled high on makeshift drays,
catafalques for the slaughtered.

Shame, given no word, stalked the psyche,
grief snuffed, losses left to history –
an uprooting unappeased by the promise
of America, anomie our lot.

We, the next generation, inquired
with trepidation. Armenians, we were told,
were smart and hardworking. The past
wasn’t worth dwelling upon. It belonged
to those from Hyastan and not us, their children.


This poem has previously appeared in the South Carolina Review

Krikor N. Der Hohannesian

Krikor N. Der Hohannesian has been writing poetry for almost 40 years but until a few years ago never mustered the courage to submit his work for publication. To his utter surprise, editors took interest! Der Hohanessian's work has since appeared in many journals, newspapers and anthologies. He comes from a family of writers, artists and musicians on both sides so it is no accident that he was drawn into the arts.

The poem "Love Spell" is about his maternal grandfather, to whom he gives full credit for his love for writing and literature.

Armenag Nazar (hairig) fled Turkey (Aintab) with his young family in tow in 1910 shortly after the massacre at Adana - the handwriting already being on the wall. He was a writer and a founding editor of Baikar, which Der Hohannesian believes was the first Armenian language newspaper in the USA.

Every Armenian of his generation whom Der Hohannesian speaks with remembers one thing, if nothing else: the familial silences regarding the events of that time - his were no different. Mostly everything they learned was by innuendo and inference.
Two of Der Hohannesian's poems which appear in the Armenian Poetry Project, "The Bearer" and "The Secret", are reflections on his own experience of this phenomenon. To say that he, as a child, found it unsettling would be an understatement.

Krikor N. Der Hohannesian: THE BEARER

There is always one

the anointed one

the bearer of the sadness

and you can’t remember

how it came to be

or why you, not yet of age,

were chosen.


With no forewarning

it sneaks through a side door

in any number of disguises -

a nod

a touch

a word

a sidelong look

weighty silences

and yes, sometimes,

even a smile

wry at the edges,

knowing.


This unpublished poem appears courtesy of the author, Krikor N. Der Hovannesian.