Seta Krikorian - YESTERDAY - TODAY

Yesterday was sorrow and fear…
Gasping solitude
Yesterday was a dull torment
Infernal routine
Yesterday was death and gore
Ardent pleading of the soul
Yesterday loveless monochrome
It was misery without hope

That was yesterday…

Today is delight and fervor
Flowing in my veins
Today is holiday born of light
In my blazing soul
Today is life and faith
Tilling my loneliness
Today is love born of shivers
Yearning to be yours…

It is different today…



Seta Krikorian
Translated by Tatul Sonentz

Seta Krikorian - NON EXISTENCE

The sun gave birth
To countless hues
And sent them to earth

Seta Krikorian
translated by Tatul Sonentz

Seta Krikorian - CONTRADICTIONS

Contradictions
Poles in controversy
Have fashioned me

I dismantled them
Took them apart
Gave them to the sun

My body in parts
I took to the
galley


SETA KRIKORIAN
Translated by Tatul Sonentz

Seta Krikorian - APRIL 24

In my scorched mind
You writhe again
Merciless date
And petal by petal
The lilies of my spring
Fall from my soul

I am cold…

With your grieving gaze
You verbalize:
“Why do your flowers fade
When you reach me?”

I only half breathe…

I know
You are a number
A buttoned figure of two and four

Yet
You are more…

A silent collapse
Raises in me bastions of wrath
And my answer is attired in scarlet
From my slaughtered land’s mute meadows
The bleeding vessels of my martyred race
Stifle the walls of my skull once more…

Oh! Do not turn to charcoal
Do not smolder under my dark gaze
Speak out
Tell me
How shall I shroud the shrieks
Of my million-and-a-half martyrs
So that my memory shall no longer shudder
At the nightmare inherited by blood
Which is as much mine
As my father’s mother’s grandmother’s…?

You are blameless
Yet you are bound to boundless Der Zor

You possess no sword
Yet you bear a khachqar smashed by sword

With no Case to pursue
You are now Diaspora scattered to the winds
Where I reside
Yet I am halved…

To what does the other half relate?

Oh! It is You It is You
Merciless Date…


Seta Krikorian
Translated by Tatul Sonentz

Seta Krikorian - SOLITUDE

My room gasps with the breath
of your shadow
and my soul dons shivers
as it faints
quivering in the ardor of your kiss…

My body burns with the thirst
of your touch
and rivulets form wrinkles on my brow…

I stand naked
conjuring the heat of your blood…

In the emptiness
my hands long to sculpt you
but space turns to dust
at my fingertips…
poppies freeze in my veins…


Seta Krikorian
translated by Tatul Sonentz

Seta Krikorian - MAN

Man…
Puzzle
Plucked from the navel of the universe…

Man…
Spirit and fervor parched for a kiss
Brutality squashing affection…

Man…
Seed of creativeness
Fertile womb
Placenta of new shoots
Strangler of screams
Rapist of splendor
Bloodthirsty jaws…

Man…
A missing item
In wholeness…

Man…
Mysterious concord
Of contradictions…

Man…
Dream-walker among stars
A shovel digging ravines in hearts…

Man…
Builder of lands
Drawing blood from the earth
Sweat and explosive at the same time…

Man…
Layer upon layer of emotions…

Man…
Still a beast in opulence…


Seta Krikorian
translated by Tatul Sonentz

Seta Krikorian - LIGHTSTAR - In Memory of Vigen Zacarian

I sprinkled
Red roses on your tombstone
And filled your bursting silence
With dazzling scents…

My tears punctured
Your stone…


SETA KRIKORIAN
Translated by Tatul Sonentz

Seta Krikorian - I DISLIKE

I dislike Darkness
That cannot enslave me
The deception of light
I dislike the Light
That desires me not
The shadow of hope
I dislike Hope
That does not caress me
The fever of dream
I dislike the Dream
That does not embrace me
The rapture of love
I dislike the Love
That does not scorch me
The simmering of life…

I love Life
Even as it brings
The sadness of Death…


Seta Krikorian
Translated by Tatul Sonentz

Seta Krikorian - HOMELESS

Days vanish in a homeless life…

You don’t know where
Which corner of what street
Your body will come to rest
When it gets dark
With clouds above
And drops of water drip
From your unruly hair
Along with your tears

Days vanish in a homeless life…

You don’t know where next morning
You will open your fever-jaundiced eyes
(Once…a myriad torrid glances
spinned discreetly in your eyes…)

On the noisy old mattress
Or at the edges of the deaf sofa’s
Puncture-humped back…

You no longer look like the one
Who in the mists of the past
Was buried as a pillar of salt

No
You don’t look like yourself
Who had a roof over her head
A bed – clean sheets –
Where she vanished after anguish
And wove dreams
Up the lampshade’s midriff
And with the same feminine scent
Welcomed the sun…

Now you are not even female…

You are homeless

Homeless

Which is not even any kind of human…


Seta Krikorian
translated by Tatul Sonentz

Seta Krikorian - PROLOGUE

Under my footsteps
Snow becomes mud
Look – my feet are clean
But the shoes are not my own
They are alienation
From Beirut to Yerevan
Oakland—Los Angeles—Toronto
And now they meander in Montreal
Like a dirge yet to end…

I change my shoes from land to land
Yet my feet remain the same
Spotless as a fabled melody
That hums an outlandish ditty
Sometimes awash with femininity
At times conceited
And wounded
Seeking that ancient regal abode
Where souls never ever freeze…

Thus I walk
And walk
My feet are clean
Yet the shoes are not mine
They are the outline of my wanderings
At night
Of my obscure dreams that
Often splatter on the pavement
Like the tears of a blameless child
And at times blacken the density of light
They creak
They gasp
Like the life-giving grain
When crushed between millstones…

My shoes are not mine
But my feet are clean
And I still stride
With eternal faith
Meek as a virgin
I seek the light beneath my steps
I stretch my hand to the sun’s flames
I search for my path
Above and below
To keep my stance upright
Extended skyward
Like the Valiant Mountain
To reach that new proud abode
Where souls never ever melt…


SETA KRIkORIAN (b. 1964)
Translated by Tatul Sonentz

Seta Krikorian - SOUL

In search for the absolute
My soul once more stepped into a snare

Poor soul…

Once more you turned spineless-putty
A repulsive hoof of stone
That others lead by the nose
Towards hazy shores

No one ever stood up
In defense of you
Your nation or
Your land

The venom of rejection
Shall forever gnaw
At your guts
Soul

What did you expect to find
In a place like Toronto
Soul?
Which one of your woes
Had you forgotten under the snow
That you now rush over
To hug to caress it?
Soul? Soul…

Your stammering was cut short
Still thirsty for knowledge
Soul
Your love was left far behind
Pining for a warm bosom
Unfortunate soul

Now you are left naked disrobed
In this desolate exile
Even your feet cannot tell
Eden from hell
And the sun seems to be
A dim snowball in this
Alien wilderness

Soul…

Once more
You are a doomed slave
In the darkness of your cave
Your freedom decapitated
As a stillborn yearning
Soul…

You have lost your way
You are bewildered
You are uncontainable
But you are mine
You are mine
Mine…
My vivacious
My most libidinous
My emerald dreamer soul

Soul…


Poem by Seta Krikorian
Translated by Tatul Sonentz

Seta Krikorian - WAITING

When the sun’s pandering
Makes the horizon blush
And my bleeding yearning
Flares forth in a blue bonfire
of a pearly see

I burst into tears…

When the weight of waiting
Cloaks my soul with darkness
Before the shadows of the trees
lengthen
And before the wind grieves
The futility of the dying day

I weep…

I drift in the dark
Groping for your essence…


Poem by Seta Krikorian
Translated by Tatul Sonentz

Seta Krikorian - WHEN YOU SHOW UP

When you show up
In the solitude of my damp night
Meadow saffrons take shape…

My dreams sport a body
And my yearnings – visions of the soul –
Rock my distress with mellow whispers
You
On the trails of my blood
Erect domes of oblivion
Where our lovelorn souls
Leak blue flames
On the altar
Of mystery…

Ether by ether
We offer Mass
To delusion's parable

While our lips
Sublimating kisses
Sing the delivery of Light…


Poem by Seta Krikorian
Translated by Tatul Sonentz