Michael E. Stone: A Valley Near Sevan

Broad green concave valley,

a water course marked by trees

green wigwams for travellers

way bounded by mountains,

snow in pleats down crevices.

Flowering trees by the road,

poplars half-dressed

in early green.

A mountain peaked like a nipple,

snow in dimples in the hills.

The car climbed on up.

Armenia May 2011

Michael E. Stone: Grigor’s Name

The monastery is gone,

except for parts

cut out of bedrock.

A cistern,

deep and dark,

raised stone edge,

round mouth,

no cover now.

Crumbling white mosaic,

missing partly,

frames for designs

marked but empty.

Grigor left his name

in coloured stones,

at the cistern’s edge.

Hot, sun burns,

desert spreads below,

all the way to the Jordan

and the road to Jericho,

past Euthymius’ lavra

at the Red Khan.

May 2009, Jerusalem

Michael E. Stone:Whirl Rosette!

A child’s propellor
spins,
yellow-blue blur,
whirling rosette,
symbol of eternity.

The whirl's heart
looks dark and stable,
center holding,
edge fixed firm.

The world turns
no beginning
no ending
just whirling
till the parts fuse.

Eternity’s symbol.

Eghegis, Armenia

Michael E. Stone: Geghard

I went to Geghard yesterday.
By the way you can see
fruit trees and villages and stalls selling jam
and coloured necklaces of walnuts and apricots.

Snow and stone roaring down
washed out the road in places.
Volcanic rock and tufa gravel shining with black obsidian flakes
witnessed the volcano’s creation, the lava’s upward push.
Its power.

I was in Geghard yesterday.
It is as beautiful as ever,
and the frothing, foaming stream swollen with snow melt
carolled its spring song sprinting down from the peaks.

Over the lace stone doorway,
two bulls rearing up
and two birds en face in the spandrels,
coat-of-arms of dead princes evoke
another, former time
when the caves resounded
with chanting and incense.

Bishops and barons,
Smbat and Burtel,
they reached even here,
bulls and eagles, pomp and ceremony,
and cells dot the hills.

Peaks, some snow and the river’s cascade
at the foot of the church’s hill.
Polychrome fruit lavash, and
round pilgrims’ bread hawked.

Stone crosses in the rock above,
strive to vanquish the rocky cliffs,
bring them under faith’s yoke,

like our selves our bodies.


May 7 2011

Michael E. Stone: Don’t Eat Olives

Don’t eat olives in Armenia,

you get black ones with no taste.

Not Kalamata black,

with meaty, half-bitter flesh,

pungent and almost erotic.

Nor the really bitter pounded green olives

that leave the mouth alive and assault the senses

with the bitter taste of their land of birth,

my land.

In Armenia, eat as they do,

meat and salad and thin, thin bread,

yoghurt, cheese and apricots.

Just not olives.

Michael E Stone: Boomerang Bar in Yerevan

Boomerang Bar in Yerevan

has one real fake boomerang on the wall,

a half-Italian menu of pizza,

and khatchapuri, Belgian soup,

            hamburgers and airconditioning.

As I sat there,

the American music turned into Russian

and there was nary a difference.

Or am I just old and grumpy?

Michael E. Stone, October 2010.

Michael Stone's new book of poetry

  

REVIEWS 

Michael Stone’s knowledge of the Armenian Culture is extensive; he has managed to capture its essence through his poems. To keep him company in his writings are contemporary sites and the people of the modern Republic, its natural wonders, fauna and flora, and the ghosts of beloved saints.

This is a gorgeous quote from his poem “Sinai Scenes”:  

“They are all still there—
Romans, Greeks, Nabateans,
Armenians, Jews, Arabs,
Bedouin, Sabeans, Egyptians.
Layered human traffic of the wasteland.”

Lola Koundakjian, Poet, Curator and Producer of The Armenian Poetry Project

Michael E. Stone’s poetry is keenly observed. His Selected Poems lead us through several contrasting landscapes and present us with startling images of Jerusalem’s ‘dramatic geometry’, the ragged beauty of the Ararat Plains, its ancient monasteries and scattered gravestones and the Australian bush with its ‘sweetspidered brown boronia’. His poetry is deeply spiritual and displays a tautness of focus and concentrated lyricism. With equal parts wisdom and passion, Stone lodges us memorably in his clearly articulated world.

Graham Nunn, Editor, SpeedPoets, Brisbane, Australia

Price $15 includes shipping                     


To preview the book,  click on this link and to purchase online  click here.

Quote for the month of April

"They are all still there—

Romans, Greeks, Nabateans,

Armenians, Jews, Arabs,

Bedouin, Sabeans, Egyptians.

Layered human traffic of the wasteland."

Michael Stone, SINAI SCENES

Michael E Stone: BLACK BEAUTY

The obsidian I brought back,

Looks black, opaque.

But held to the light,

has clear, translucent stripes.

Smoky hard fragility,

Fused in Vulcanʹs fire,

Black‐veined, textured

with lucid patches.

All through some hills

are veins of black glass,

Its blackness is beauty.

On a mount facing Araʹs,

I found a stone knife,

chipped from obsidian rock

of old.

I am black and beautiful,

She sings in the Song,

and through her blackness

the Groom becomes lucent.

Michael E Stone: YEREVAN CAFE

A little park off the Prospekt,
half of it is a cafe now
-- not unpleasant --
and the rest, abandoned.

Mexican yuccas in tubs and
cane garden furniture
bound together with raffia,
with round glass-topped tables,
striving for a patio feeling,
But unfinished.

We sit there dining on
the toughest guinea fowl ever hatched
and a cool wind blows through,
from one end to the other,
mixing the aroma
of traffic on the Prospekt
and of gas pumps at the back.

May 2009

Michael E Stone: Salt Cellar

A stylized salt-cellar,
in brown ceramic
ovoid, a woman's face,
and a fringe of pottery hair on top
hands at its sides.

a marsupial Humpty-Dumpty
with a pouch full of salt
for flavour,
and a pottery spoon.

Copyright Michael E. Stone

Michael E. Stone: Khor Virap

Khor Virap on a hill's shoulder,
not even reaching up to
near-far Ararat's ankles.
Its wall and dome
etched out.

Square gravestones scattered
at its foot,
Like so many children's blocks,

A boy sells doves,
(turtle doves?).

We bought ice cream and Coca Cola
by Gregory's vault-covered pit,
its wall engrooved
by ages' reverent kiss.

Copyright Michael E. Stone

Michael E. Stone is Gail de Nur Professor of Comparative Religion and Professor of
Armenian Studies at Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The poem appears by kind permission of the author.

Michael E. Stone: A Manuscript

Thick yellow paper, brown-flecked, thick,
Laid and polished by hand.
Small, blocky letters inscribed
by stylus in carbon ink.

A straightforward, modest book,
standing upright alongside
jewelled, gold-crusted treasures
made for bishops and kings.

Copied in a village church
by a priest, for the love of God;
bound with leather and twine,
over wooden boards, lovingly.

A note by a reader,
three centuries ago,
asks to remember his soul,
and that of his dead mother.

A later owner ransomed it,
he tells,
from the hands of "the others".

Cherished, it enfolds
the past and future hopes.

Copyright Michael E. Stone

Michael E. Stone is Gail de Nur Professor of Comparative Religion and Professor of Armenian Studies at Hebrew University of Jerusalem. This poem appears by his kind permission.