ARMENIAN POETRY PROJECT

I could not look my victim in the eyes though he was dead I shaved without once looking my victim in the eyes. This poem has ...

Leonard Alishan (1951-2005) Plucking petals is a sin. Listen to my song, my love, though I sing it silently; though I s...

At my birthday parties  we played musical chairs.  Whoever was left standing  got a big hug from Granny.  She knew all too well how i...

A new collection of poetry by the late Armenian-Iranian-American poet, Leonardo Alishan, "Dead Man's Shadow," is now availab...

Angels sleep on a stack of gambling debts gathering dust and interest. The ivy loses five leaves every day. I helplessly count the last slee...

II It's April, as all months are on my calendar, and every day's the twenty-fourth. And in April everything's in bloom in Utah; ...

Papa broke the bread in half. The aroma. I remembered you. A bone, somewhere in me, broke. Hungry, I kissed mama good-night and left. All ni...

The lion came to the city asking for me. He did not find me. I was in the church praying for the lion to arrive. Copyright Leonardo Alishan....

Bach? No. Give me mad Komitas. Give me the compositions he composed in the last years of his life in the last cells of his soul, and ...

Today I celebrate my health with the taste of cigarettes and the smell of fresh coffee. Today I can pass the ordeal of molten brass. I can w...

Sitting by the soft fire, I will sip my tea and tell my grandsons that yes, I was there, on that ship with Odysseus, though I was a simple s...

Click to hear the audio clip The Game read by Yeraz Markarian. When papa was in a good mood he played hide and seek with my little brot...

Click the link to hear Tired Thoughts read by Yeraz Markarian. They have buried ten million mines in Afghanistan, one land mine for every t...