Hi Coucou

Wild grass

Burn the desert

In sand and clay

The rabbit stays

In the shade

Of the fire plume

The quail runs

Away from

Its burned feathers

Dry brush

Still on the hill

Rain on the way

September 23, 2019

©Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2019

It is monsoon season in Arizona and the skies have opened to pour all the water they can hold. Flooding happens quickly when the ground is so dry for so long.

I was reading Haikus by Matsuo Basho circa 1680s. After a few line, ”Haiku sounded like “coucou” and I thought of the roadrunner, one of the most recognizable birds of the desert, moving in short but fast runs like a Haiku.

So, decided to try a few short runs of my own upon the empty screen.

Yellow Day-lily

Time did not stay
Long enough
So in the dark of the highnoon
Moon
I left the door open

And I waited
Holding a promise
Like a flower at the graveside
Where a human shell was left alone
Waiting for the open door
To let the promise
In

And the flower I held
A daylily thirsty and dry
Became my hand
With hurting joints
Hoping to still hold
What had already
Passed

Since time did not stay
And I had no space to hide it
From its own passage
If it had stayed

I opened the door wider
To let the long shadow cover
The darkness of the highnoon
Moon

And then there was no name
No smile carved upon the stone
Crushing the graveside
Where I let
The daylily fall
As a promise

September 11, 2019
© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2109

Anhelo Vacío

There is more than a word

For love

As those we loved

Did not know we did

Saudade

I was told,

Is for longing

Of what is long

Gone

There is more than love

When you ask those eyes

To bury you

So you will not be alive

Alone

And when the river

Takes a wrong turn

You wonder how you will say

That you once indeed felt

And that you still remember

Nostalgia, the secret binding

Called in different ways

That still makes you long

For the last scent your breath left

Upon her smile

As she walked away

Through the glass door

To be lonely

Alone

September 6, 2019

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2019

Stony Walls

It was just a drop

But I drowned in it

The moment got lost

In the whisper of fear

And the drop filled

All spaces

There was no morning

After a night of wonder

Coffee was bitter, butter had

Melted

And dogs started barking

In loneliness

It was just a drop

That covered my page

In words I had forgotten

In passion that once was

Love

And made my pen bleed

In dark ink and colour

There was no morning

After I wrote that page

In sounds cities make

When all sleep in pain

In sounds the fall mist gives

To the top of tall

Trees

And then

I drank the coffee

Scratched my belly

And wore my heavy boots

To go out

And feed

The

Dogs

August 25, 2019

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2019

Erratum

Got an email from a reader who did not sign the message as most of the comments I get. Indeed, in my August 10 posting about national awakening through poetry, I had typed the Estonian national prose awakening document incorrectly – it should be Kalevipoeg (Kalievipoek in Estonian meaning Kalev’s Son) and not Klavipoeg as I had written.

I have made the correction, with thanks. And, as I was typing somehow I wondered why would someone find the word Umbrella funny, or suggest reading Jonathan Livingston’s Seagull…

August 23, 2019

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2019

Chromesthesia

Red is not of anger

But a sound to abide

While you feel the labour pain

Of the woman on the fifth floor

Near the summer-dry creek

Yellow is for squirrel bark

When high noon is all sun

All flame, without the sound

Of any shade

A broken violin in the trash bin

And the road is again all green

Each cord curled as alphabet

And a lunar calendar of days

There are shoes near the pool

Which have walked the dusty trails

Where elegance lost its colour

To a spectrum

In melody

August 20, 2019

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2019

Note: I wrote these lines influenced by a painting by Wassily Kandinsky titled “Yellow, Red and Blue”

They Left Without Fanfare

Grateful

I let in

On an unmoon night

The shadow of a wall

I had learned before

That the uninvited

Bring presents

I had received before

Grateful

I let them in

Sitting upon a crumbling wall

To hear about ancient seas and gulls

Eloquence

Is a narrow path

Where the truth is lost

In the travel dust

But I stayed there

To hear the wings

Of dark crows

Cut the morning light

And I let in

Grateful and without fear

The promise uninvited souls

Brought as present

Till the dust settled

And the path found its reason

To follow

And be lost around the bend

And then

When all roads

Came to an end

I stood upon that wall

And whispered

A name

A time

When promises

Were never shared

Just

Given

As presents

For being

Let in

August 19, 2019

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2019