Zareh Melconian - SONG ABOUT MANURE AND MAN

Awakened by a dream with a start,

Suddenly

I ran into another dream…

And I, a painter of wonders,

Dipped my brush

Into a huge pail

Full of gloom, phlegm and  muddy refuse

And with furious strokes

I painted multicoloured

The immense world of man

Set on the tripod of Nothing

as a canvas….

I painted the yearnings of man colourless,

All soaring arches I painted in the colour of pain…

And I sought their dreams in vain,

To paint

In the colour of silence….

The roads on which man ran,

I covered with rust and tarnish,

And there, where the loves of man were,

I punched holes with the grip of my brush,

And where the eyes were,

I glued frozen buttons with acidic paste…

And I spread ashes, dust and waste,

There, where man’s promises were…

And from the old toolbox I took out blunt, twisted nails

And I nailed

There, where their smiles were…

Then I plastered decaying layers of rags

There, where the chests and secrets of men were ….

 And then I dug a bottomless pit

 In men’s abdomen,

And buried there the world’s last revolution,

And I shoved in there the inane fable of equality and love,

And I covered the pit with the jelled entrails

Of  all slaughtered, and still to be slaughtered liberties

 And I signed my masterpiece

 With the nail scratching of my disgust,

 And I tossed it

 Where I had picked it up last,

-- Hideously abandoned in the rotting NOTHINGNESS…!

Zareh Melconian

Translated by Tatul Sonentz