ArmenianPoetryProject

I never wrote a poem about war.
As a child every storm shook
the walls of my home.
I never wrote a poem about war.
In classrooms I read the scene of Juliek
playing his violin in the Giewitz snowfall.
I never wrote a poem about war.
At six, I was given thick-bound books filled with
pages of my decapitated poets.
I never wrote a poem about war.
All my dears are toiling, fervent
as they cry out the death tolls of children.
I never wrote a poem about war.
I haven’t the right. How can I ever know
those sorrows. I dare not try.
I never wrote a poem about war.
Not even today when a cellist played
K[h]atchaturian on a pile of wreckage in Beirut.
I’ll never write a poem about war.
What can I say that hasn’t been said,
when I’m silenced into prayer for the dead
and the dying.
Aida Zilelian lives in New York City. This poem appeared in Decelaration.

She fed me oranges and my worries went away
on the road from the Bosphorus
I spit the seeds out the window
of the small white car
speeding down the mountain
at fifteen I planted my memory
there on the dirt road
and found the beginning of where
my skin was born
on the hands of all my grandmothers
waving to me on that dirt road;
shouting their stories in the wind
so I can hear their echo
even in the speeding car,
and carry voices in my pocket
eating oranges
laughing and telling jokes
in another language,
and smiling each time
I see an old woman reminding me
of all my grandmothers
and all their sad eyes staring
at me, watching me leave
the land where they were born;
hoping I take a piece of them
with me to remember when I am old.
1999

who used to draw
in the mud of the water bank
with a stick and weave marvelous
stories for her little boy
in a village called Tadem,
who used to decorate
the tops of pastry with cut outs
of fantastic figures;
this is for Zarif
who did needlework
passably well
and figures faster than any man.
This is for Zarif
who prayed with two hands
and who wrote to her son
that although she could not watch him
while he was away at school
she knew he would want to be
like the other good men in his family
who did not smoke.
This is for that simple woman
who did not teach her son
to be a revolutionary
but when revolution came, hid a gun for him
in the garden, against bad days.
This is for Zarif whom the Turks beat,
asking the whereabouts of that son;
for Zarif who said over and over again
I do no know,
although she did.
This is for Zarif whose arm was smashed
then made raw then broken to pieces
then cut off while she repeated when she waked
she did not know.
This is for one-armed Zarif
who lived through hell;
who lived to see her grandchildren
in another world,
this is for her
who once held my right hand in her left
and never told me what I must do with mine.

We were the first humans seen by those
three on the dirt road near Crane's
beach. More innocent than tame
they mistook us, holding hands,
for something four legged
like them, and allowed
us to walk close.
We reached nearer, near
their wilderness. They did not stir
until one bounded off
half leaf, half bird.
The others followed, disappeared
into the trees. And we became
two bipeds instead of one deer.
Diana Der Hovanessian, from Songs of Bread, Songs of Salt

https://armenian-poetry.blogspot.com/2007/03/harout-kostandyan-untitled.html

https://armenian-poetry.blogspot.com/2007/04/harout-kosdantyan-land.html

https://armenian-poetry.blogspot.com/2007/06/harout-kosdantyan.html

https://armenian-poetry.blogspot.com/2025/08/blog-post_06.html

Dialogue, from the Album "Conversations with Manol”. By special permission by the composer and performer, Ara Dinkjian.

https://armenian-poetry.blogspot.com/2025/08/blog-post.html

https://armenian-poetry.blogspot.com/2008/07/blog-post_26.html