Lonesome Wheatberry

Rotee is more than bread – it is livelihood in India

Nan is not the name for bread – it is survival for a Kurd

Agnus Dei is more than a song – it is the prelude to Fractio Panis

But breaking bread has no meaning when the bread is soft

Wine and bread have shaped the culture of loving

Yet dough is inelastic when Gluten is left out

It makes people inflexible and unkind

Since few fear celiac disease when their stomach is empty  

And going to bed hungry, dreaming of crumbled bread

Bran and germ have to stay in the bread

To celebrate friendship, trust and union

With a world in fear of hips that bear promises

And meals that quiet colicky children going to bed hungry

Breaking bread is not a tradition

But a promise to feed those who cannot break away

From the celebration

Of goodness

PS/ The picture is of Rocky, my sweet companion of 14 years who passed away recently. He always waited for a piece I bread I would break and share with him at dinner.

June 21, 2019

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2019

Wraparound

I chewed on my pencil #2

All morning

The words came

And left

Without helping

Me say

    My muse had a name

    But no promise

    Had deep pain

    But always smiled

        So I chewed on my pencil

        And scratched my dog’s ear

        Words came and left

        And laughed

          On their way out

June 20, 2019

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2019

Simple Audiences who Left the Show Early

I could have been

The boy who was always a man

In a quiet short sigh

Before knowing when to leave

Without goodbye

I could have stayed

In that vast space

Where a name echoed

And walls surrounded themselves

Like ghosts exposed to death

I could have kept the fire

In hope of cold nights to come

But I poured all the tears I had

And let the fire die

Shivering like wet wood

I could have stay in the port

When the storm was still afar

But the slow swell of the waves

Stressed my syllables

And I could only echo

The name

That in the vast space had lost

Its fear

To

Escape

June 16, 2019

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2019

Looking Into a Passing River

Hera took Echo’s voice

So she can only repeat

What others said

… I have seen Gothic cathedrals

From Warsaw to Barcelona

Stone elephants in the Church of Santa Maria

de Belém in Lisboa

Yet Narcissus never saw

In Echo what in Donacon River

He found

… I left my hope in the Lady of Lourdes

A sunny day in Singapore

And admired the Grand Mosque of Hayatnagar

In Hyderabad

But a voiceless nymph

Never feared that I would knew

About myself in reflection

So there was no funeral for a watery

Grave

Just a flower

Purple within

White leaves surrounded

Six petal-like tepals

Surmounted by a cup corona

En guise of goodbye

June 2, 2019

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2019