Artem Harutiunian - NIGHT SUN

Street to street, demented signal, line-drawn land

enters the city with open arteries --

where wounds are dressed with the salve of speech,

and the garb of poverty is left to wrap

the entire dissolving body.

I need a dime now to call my misery.

 

Oh, look, look, clouds disappear once more

at the magician's hands,

the row of bridges moves over innocent waters

and carries collection ice towards the poor

who are petrified objects, to be misplaced

by chance!

 

Yet, there was love over there, cribs,

white linen, order and neatness,

now, near the light, a heap of refuse,

a gaze suffering with eyesores

that has lost sight of man,

and the scream of those who've abandoned

the love-play of green spike

to look in a statue's heart for love.

 

I've brought my life for others,

those who live

on steps painted by children

and tree-roots,

where there's always sky with open shutters.

But fading hope has water-wells, where the image

of your face is shattered,

to imbibe this air with battle-shredded marrow,

space leaps in sleep,

brings new links and faces,

land ends in dream. Transfigurations,

hard flowering, deep roots

in the brush of consciousness, where

in sections leading to nature,

there's life surviving still in secret,

and streets where the gorilla accompanies

the rich man, who seems to appear careless

yet keeps his eye on each house,

while AIDS still veils

his tormented organs.

 

Oh, this is the hour of sacred loneliness,

where the block is ever awake in his mind,

and moves onward, onward

until the abbreviated petrifaction

of self-built political monuments is reached,

where there's always dying history

plastered with petrol!

Oh, this nighttime sun, that moves from

the bosom of sleep to the doubt of awakening,

kept itself a stranger!

 

And what if you cannot confess

near the hairy ear of congress,

the secret matter tormenting you? Oh, blessed Lord,

where are we going in this corner of the universe?

What is that bug-eyed secret spider weaving,

while drinking this land and

silently glaring at everything,

nations, pains, weather reports, entire horrors are funneled

down the planet's drain,

disposed of, dumped as trash from a mill

where they are now stamping out minds

in the name of a new cast.

 

 

ARTEM HARUTIUNIAN

Translated by Tatul Sonentz

Artem Harutiunian - CURFEW IN STEPANAKERT

Once more, tanks,
leaning their black old bulks
against the hopeless face
of posterity
which, already, hasn't spoken to us
for these many years . . .

Tanks painted in fading shades,
faces shaved in springtime,
the unfolding street horizon is now shod
with the conscripts' rising tobacco smoke

I lay down next to the murmur
of the fountain's mountain water,
three shadows wrapped in greatcoats
merge and lie down beside me,
the ir motorcars polished
hard as totalitarian lands,
and gun-barrels chilling as the eyes of fish.
As the day fades fast, this anguish
suggests a photoplay in black-and-white,
where the curfew herds people homeward
like so many dolls, hollow,
ragged, leaving behind -
as a microscopic sign of hope -
the phosphorus of tyranny nailed
to the sparks made by marching boots.

Today is the third day of curfew
and all must prim and be proper, hair combed,
all must clip short the nails of revolt,
everyone must dream in sameness of color
and similarity of trend,
all must respect the letter of the state,
which is far away, beyond misty steppes,
dispatching to us only its red light, as a sign of love
from its one-eyed, cyclopic tower --
plus the summons of November,
that shed their clothes in the icy clime
and become all fang and thorn
and swift bayonet, if met with scorn.

Traces of nails and dagger on walls adjacent to jails,
while the blood of the tortured is dried quickly
with the steamy breath of political prayer
and howls rising from Turkey.

Here, where bodies fell,
a strange bird appeared, pecking at its own pace
at something or other that we couldn't quite place,
as the trees outside at the sight of me
scatter up the street in a big hurry,
as in the fierce cold foliage flutters,
shivering, as if it's my turn as an offering.


ARTEM HARUTIUNIAN
translated by Tatul Sonentz

Artem Harutiunian - NEGOTIATIONS

I feel, that all
wish to negotiate now,
right now
they negotiate everywhere --
in the cafes, around round tables,
on the heavy fist of politics,
under which lie nations, crushed,
broken to bits,
pretending to sing
the hosanna of freedom,
while blowing bull
at your ear,
when from a distance
everything is so clear.
And a special thanks
to what made me
write my first poem
the sky and the
underground earth,
which are also negotiating
with the covert lips
of the rain.

The million genocide victims
have yet to find a place,
they wander and holler
in the desert; observe!
it's the same language of war
and the same bloody banner
over the turbaned tribe
that tries to look unaware.
Here at home the mafia
hustles the forty billion,
in basements, fragile children
are brought to a so-called
kindergarten,
the eternal bellowing of cops
over crimes organized by themselves.
Those who flee, face the deluge,
those who stay, earthquake hastens
to cover them with the gravel and sand
of a felon who wears
an official's uniform.
Those flying to heaven,
(empty heaven)
are emptied of themselves,
praying to a worldly horror show,
accepting it as a house
of righteousness,
and roll with joy
on the dank, cloud-flooded floor,
where I'm forever looking
for a hand.

Now, with its fire
the sun starts a new fire in me,
give me, oh Lord
I don't know what,
I don't know whom,
there are youngsters homeless, alone,
aged women wander out there,
there is such waste at every step,
when there's no aim in the land, alcohol
shimmers in silence,
in the pupil's fading eyeball,
look, as the sound of the soil moves,
rising above this ruined soul,
let me doze off beside newsrags
fresh off the press, in mutual denial,
let me have visions --
that on this dying planet
homes in ruins are a thing of the past,
that the negotiating sides
have come together, at last.


ARTEM HARUTIUNIAN
translated by Tatul Sonentz

Artem Harutiunian - MY ONLY ABODE

The wind caresses
the orchard's stillness,
and the rainy day
is now lost
to recreation.
To the last light
I can see again
and fail to believe,
bunches of trees like twisted souls --
a group of silence conspiring darkly
in front of the night,
and a lost pause, where as always,
mystery beckoned
to another
life . . .

ARTEM HARUTIUNIAN
translated by Tatul Sonentz

Artem Harutiunian - ROADS

A

Shall I give a call
to my big-city buddies,
and quickly divulge
the exact place
of stillness?
Shall I tell them
of the real medieval
chaos of those who live
under grey roofs, that
they acquiesce to life's
silent whip?
Those looking down
their towers have decreed
a new decision against man,
and are astounded when
the poor body screams,
concealing its possessions
in the cold shade of the bridge
as if in rebellion.

Shall I give a call
to the stations, where
wide-awake, they await
my soul's call?
But let us delay till the horror
of time has passed away to enter
the millennium and no longer be.
I have covert tutors --
the trees of the
crooked alley.

My jet approaches
the frozen moon, and comes back
to human beings'
warmth-city, where
you seldom find these days
a being such as this.
Sick to the bone, what sort of senility
has the block created,
and these roads of the flesh
will they lead all the way
to the fiery call
of the soul?

Myself, my road,
guardian and killer,
son of my mind,
lord and master that
beheld bile everywhere.

B

Elsewhere, concealed in the soil,
evil-motion,
writhing like a hydra-tail,
burrows the secret path,
on which structures built of solid mind,
medicine-stores, prison-inns,
secret underground sediments
building big bombs,
also lively children
among the dense blessings
of s pringtime leaves,
death-row inmates defeated
in confrontation with evils,
with a sharp-edged knife at the neck
honed with the gentle words
of a decree printed with the
delicate hands of a young girl living
with musings of marriage,
printing papers about death-life,
dreaming of acquiring love
under a half-moon,
(you were writing the firm poem
of your body and roaming
around city parks.)

Ah! the same hydra
(endless evil-motion)
absconds with centuries-long life,
turning thousand year old wisdom
to threadbare illusion,
the season negotiates with us
secretly over love.

Do us a favor, fog,
you who cover every notion
with your flake-soft hair,
it's your seal on Ararat
that awakens once in a while
the heavily armed conscience
of nations, (the contempt-face
of super-surveillance
has dust all over the place
that turns to deadly poison
in any sudden rain.)
Shall I report to you,
shake your forest-scented hand,
become stone in the core
of wet clay that keeps in touch
with death without the care of the living?
(So many shapes in oblivion!)

Here is the short list
of my covert actions:
(tramping around the thick skirts
of Mrakatz) I squeeze the hand
of the fallen month that had turned
to widespread compassion,
like a maimed and lame person,
(waking up in the morning, I cringe
instantly in the dourness of regret,
time is filled with warm
humanoid sounds.)

In a corner of the year
born for a year, near the bridge,
the musician with no future
blows a horn. Around him,
a casual passer-by,
twisted mouth, weeping voice,
without future, the entire chaos
without future, flows along the same
greedy bed, spilling-rushing, dumping
itself on the waste-heap of time.
And I swear to be honest,
and never commit a dishonest act
in my dreams (only in life),
I'll be civilized as soon as
I open the bouquet of papers,
although, they say Pan is still alive
in the old forest, and has passion,
and love and home,
and his cat -- now obese --
secretly owns the Naiads,
as well as narcotics,
concealed within
its sharpened hidden claws.

Suddenly a bunch of screams --
confessing failed dreams,
fallen areas along the border,
the roots of its origins,
no caveats facing sorrow,
like birds in flight,
they knock themselves about
and turn silently to ashes
at the hands of the
specter's mind.

...On the sunny side
of the year of the dragon,
there's a small flower taking root,
open as a wound, but smiling --
a sign of hidden universe.


ARTEM HARUTIUNIAN
translated by Tatul Sonentz

Artem Harutiunuan - THE RIVERS OF ARTSAKH

Hot rocksides,
like a candle, the heat
stretches to the top of the poplars,
light is a beat set next to one's temple,
air seems to ignite in one's consciousness,
and then, all turn to rockbits.
We're on our way to swim in Khor Dzor,
the river smells of gleaming coolness,
of secret scents of the deep,
of concealed fish we'll try to imitate.
Than the running shade
plunges into the waters' heart,
and the flame dances to the opposite bank.

Out, towards the orchard
becoming dense deep in the leaves,
tattooed with the flight of noon over us,
there's green serenity under the leaves,
and the day is white, blinding, unnoticed,
someone begins to reign
in the depths of sunset,
the moon has left traces of nights past
through the twigs of the trees,
and that wound oozes twilight's milk.

Days of cleansing. Like shedding skin
we leave ourselves along the bank,
and reenter, briefly, the world in peace,
and the night is dense, almost blind
with the burst of stars, deaf twice over,
groping its way above the brushwood,
embalming fast the orchard's chaos,
with primordial, weightless power
always at hand but veiled.

Artem Harutiunian
Translated by Tatul Sonentz

Artem Harutiuniuan - EARTHQUAKE IN LENINAKAN

Blood-red
sick with jaundice
round moon
that seems healthy now

and human
cavity sight
that does not see
solace

enormous moon
passing through
yellow dust
like a knife
ruins and corpses
and unblinking moon-mask
that passes
along the height of its dark road

that drinks
with its gaze
the living chaos of Armenian land
blood-red and indifferent

round moon
above ruins
. . . below


ARTEM HARUTIUNIAN
Translated by Tatul Sonentz

Artem Harutiunuan - THE MULBERRY TREE

It's God's trunk,
that of the mulberry tree,
mighty and distant
from the orchard trees --
forefather,
in whose moment of ire,
suddenly bloom
a million leaves, downy and clean
as newborn babes.
You'd never guess,
that in its heart of silk,
the silkworm in time
will worship them.
While the plum-tree,
tree of discretion,
will stand guard
at the orchard's end --
a dwarf, undetected
among the bushes.
In the late hours,
the warm mist of spring,
ancient and delicate,
wraps up everything
in clean rags,
hiding for a while
the end of living day
that we never noticed
in the torrent
of endless play. Later, the kitchen light
stares at the dawn
and does not believe
what it perceives.

ARTEM HARUTIUNIAN
Translated by Tatul Sonentz

Artem Harutiunuan - GOSPEL SONG (ARTSAKH)

In the immensity of noon,
soars the highland with the mountain hues
hand in hand,
at the feet of an enormous sun
at its zenith, dissolving slowly.
Here, the words of Mashtots are real,
like this threshold of biblical purity
and distant freshness, impossible to breech
and twice unseen, as a supplicant's dream,
as a translucent thunderhead
that rains warm drops of longing,
that keeps looking for holy forefathers
face to face with the highland,
where the mulberry-tree's delicate shoulders,
twisting against deadly intent,
holler, Haiastan! Haiastan!


ARTEM HARUTIUNIAN
translated by Tatul Sonentz

Artem Harutiunian : NIGHT SUN

Street to street, demented signal, line-drawn land
enters the city with open arteries --
where wounds are dressed with the salve of speech,
and the garb of poverty is left to wrap
the entire dissolving body.
I need a dime now to call my misery.

Oh, look, look, clouds disappear once more
at the magician's hands,
the row of bridges moves over innocent waters
and carries collection ice towards the poor
who are petrified objects, to be misplaced by chance!
Yet, there was love over there, cribs,
white linen, order and neatness,
now, near the light, a heap of refuse,
a gaze suffering with eyesores
that has lost sight of man,
and the scream of those who've abandoned
the foreplay of green spike
to look in a statue's heart for love.

I've brought my life for others,
those who live
on steps painted by children
and tree-roots,
where there's always sky with open shutters.
But fading hope has water-wells, where the image
of your face is shattered,
to imbibe this air with battle-shredded marrow,
space leaps in sleep,
brings new links and faces,
land ends in dream. Transfigurations,
hard flowering, deep roots
in the brush of consciousness, where
in sections leading to nature,
there's life surviving still in secret,
and streets where the gorilla accompanies
the rich man, who seems to appear careless
yet keeps his eye on each house,
while AIDS still veils
his tormented organs.

Oh, this is the hour of sacred loneliness,
where the block is ever awake in his mind,
and moves onward, onward
until the abbreviated petrification
of self-built political monuments is reached,
where there's always dying history
plastered with petrol!
Oh, this nighttime sun, that moves from
the bosom of sleep to the doubt of awakening,
kept itself a stranger!

And what if you cannot confess
near the hairy ear of congress,
the secret matter tormenting you? Oh, blessed Lord,
where are we going in this corner of the universe?
What is that bug-eyed secret spider weaving,
while drinking this land and
silently glaring at everything,
nations, pains, weather reports, entire horrors
are funneled down the planet's drain,
disposed of, dumped as waste from a mill
where they are now stamping out minds
in the name of a new cast.


Poem by ARTEM HARUTIUNIAN
Translated by Tatul Sonentz