The Inside Place

A place to fall

While standing up again

A place to call

In sunny days or rain

There is spring blossom and there is ruin

Vast silence and sweet whisper

There old men recall and memories run

Now with breaths short as if final winter

A place to fall

In spring or an August night

When all around have lost their soul

For that place far in flight

But

There is little left in that place

A name, a balcony, a clay pot of jasmine

Blooming in the long night and space

Where the sea met its sand, and missed the last dance

May 21, 2017

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2017

Sweet Dependency

I have seen him before on the town square – a man with a pony tail, a seeing-eye dog’s harness upon his shoulder, a large leather patch on his left eye, walking a healthy black Labrador.

This time, my dog went close and wanted to say hello to his dog.

“Is your dog friendly?” he asked.

A few minutes later we were talking as our dogs greeted each other with the usual sniffing both body ends.

“I am blind” he said, “Monty is my eyes and my friend. We are together 24 hour a day.”

Monty is 9 years old. A broad-head Labrador with mellow, honey-brown eyes.

“He saved my life 8 times already. We have been together for 8 years.”

I noticed a small camera on the eyeglasses frame, on his right eye.

“Technology is great” he replied. “I am blind in both eyes, but when I point my head in a direction, the camera translates what I see into a human voice and explains what I am looking at. Here, listen.”

And he turned louder a small instrument hooked to his belt. Now I could hear a female voice telling him “A man with a beard.”

That was me. Now he knows I have a beard. And that I am a man.

We talked for a few more minutes about how he is now learning computer use through voice recognition software and Braille.

“Soon, I will take a course in Colorado about cooking” he informed me.

… I read a poem about cocaine and dependency. Some of the verses can be generic to any dependency. It is called “Brutally Beautiful” (https://allpoetry.com/poems/about/Dependency):

I was the one in control,
But she silently took it away.
She has rooted deep within my soul.
She has shown me the way.

She commands me with my own voice.
She compels me with my own desire.
She shows me beauty I’ve never seen.
She brings me pleasure like wildfire.

… On my way back, I walked slowly on the right side of my dog. He is now 13 years old and lost sight in his right eye.

Now, I am his seeing-eye human.

April 29, 2017

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2017

Allegro, Ma Non Troppo

Repeated strains

Lead gently beyond

Where I once was

In silence

The upper strings

Are sad triplets

Like an old blanket

Stained in tears

Left wet to linger

As if my own voice

Over the wrath of silence

Vast as a sandy beach

In winter

A violin solo

Capricious as a name I kept

Without fanfare, in quiet lament

Turns a child to a corpse

And compassion into wisdom

… Allegro, ma non troppo

April 24, 2017

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2017

Brugge

I put my brush in paint

Did not mix colors, just the sound

Of the midnight train

In Bruges

Vapors were like smoke

Yet upon the timid canvas

All looked like snowfall

At midnight in August

Trains are for goodbye

A color I cannot mix

Like the sound a waving hand

Cannot stop making

And it all becomes one

A night away from a new day

When others will ride the train

And hope the journey cannot end

… But trains are for goodbye

March 20, 2017

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2017

Healing Wounds: How My Hand Reached to Lake Sevan

Two days ago, I burned my hand taking a pot out of the oven.  The blister drained and I kept it under a small bandage. This morning, as I was changing the bandage, my mind played a strange game:

Atop my hand, instead of the burn wound, I saw the contour of Lake Sevan!

With the correction of a mirror image resemblance, here is an aerial view of the lake by Google:

…And I thought about healing wounds. About wounds that have not yet healed. And I thought about my trip to Lake Sevan in 1988 during the earthquake of Spitak in northern Armenia. It was November and the shores of Lake Sevan were while in snow.

I have not seen Lake Sevan when it is blue and calm. They say it is often blue but never calm. Perhaps Ivan Aivazovsky best captured the tumult of Lake Sevan in his paintings.

…So, I starred at my miniscule wound for a while letting my mind dream and mourn. Indeed, of the three jewels of historic Armenia’s lakes, only Lake Sevan is now within the Armenian territory. Lake Van and Urmia are in Turkey as testimony of the cruel history of the early 1900s.

And I thought of these lakes as open wounds. Wounds in which poets have looked to find themselves. And suddenly, after more than 50 years of hibernation, lines from a beloved Armenian poet, Bedros Tourian, came to my lips. The poem is entitled “The Lake” in which the poet looks into the waters of Lake Sevan and ends in an introspection of his own soul. And I recited a few lines of the poem while putting a new bandage upon “my lake”.

.. My wound is less than 2 cm and will heal soon. Lake Sevan covers almost 1,250 square kilometers. 

Such large wounds do not heal.

March 16, 2017

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2017

The Inferior Truth

Intimacy is a refuge

To where you invite

All those you once knew

And leave yourself out

Intimacy is the knot

You untie alone

Then in a moment of fear

Throw the pieces to those

Who you once knew

But left you because

You were too much alike

Intimacy is the truth

Where you cannot play that role

Play that game

Or play alone

But only with those whom you

Once knew

And on an August day

Left you

Intimacy is a common shame

Where all secrets fly as kites

Where all whispers are loud and bright

Among those

Whom you once knew

And then, under an unmoon night

Left you be

Who you once were

Before you met them

February 27, 2017

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2017

Simplicity

Is

Unassuming

Like lamprey and rice

In Porto

Evasive

As if sea cucumber

Held by chopsticks

In Tainan

Unexpected

Like pigeon pie

In Edinburgh

Predictable

(Always was)

Boiled beef in bone marrow broth

In Vienna

Unforgettable

Street baked sea ray  

Wrapped in banana leaf

In Singapore

Delightful

Like lamb wrapped in wine leaves

In Aleppo

Truffly

As they like pasta

In Ferrara

Over-acclaimed

Like every dish

In Paris

Bomba rice and shrimp

For the best paella

In Valencia

Green or red

As I always remembered

The curry dish

Cooked in Mumbai

… While I have been

To every continent

And tried every dish

For my day

To end with love

Bread, cheese and wine

Remain
Simply

The best

February 16, 2017

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2017