Ani Boghossian

My grandfather turns quiet when hearing about death The inexplicable Dragging its cloak across our ancient rug Distracting dust and careless things The mundane work The house, The family, The television news, Our garden, his trees And people Who pass away at noon. My grandfather is watering the quince tree And salt has dried the crust of stranger things Harsher still the sky is getting blue A bruise on the skin of God We penetrate the window, watching our granddad Pulling out the weeds with his perceptive hands Afraid to spill the soil Devouring the light, his silver hair Disquieting the things that are to come....

I prayed The rounded hills Were bare And breathed of warmth and sorrow Someone Was licking, humming, weeping on the soil Deo tentatur, Deus enim intentator malorum est I discharged my soul and stroked its surface The hills were smoothed of trees I searched my pockets For the mustard seed God promised rain, God promised mud and growth Then someone kissed and licked my soul, anointing it with myrrh...

I am unable to tell you The passing scenes, the car’s window Leaving behind that day That night 4 am That letter about a mist That covered a village They had to flea to the top of the hill To see the setting sun Rise Rise for me, moon… Two mouths can feel The colors of tea And the moon seams halved And I always wondered why you scratch above your left brow When you’re thinking Deep Between the humming oaks I saw The tea cool And the villagers went home The mist was gone The night was warm....

I always wondered what Carla liked to do when she was young, especially on that day as we sat in this seemingly abandoned tea-house in the middle of Chinatown. A short old Chinese man bowed to us when we asked for the menu and rushed behind the counter. About 5 seconds later he brought us two thick red cardboards in Chinese with the English names of the teas handwritten next to the Chinese ones....

So one day, as me and the wonderful Miss Carla Vanamo were walking through Central Park on a promising humid still day, I swallowed my doubts and asked her with caution. -Have you ever been married? The feather on Carla’s fedora hat flicked back and forth ever so politely, as she passed through and greeted the New York air. Her gaze looking straight on, a strict smirk and the world’s best dark eyebrows....

-There’s something bothering you. I can tell… Miss Carla Vanamo, 60, was sipping her scotch, looking at me with her heavy eyes, with legs in male shoes crossed and posed with such delicate feminine strength that you’d never think it’s possible to be that great. I was perplexed, staring into my cinnamon apple tea, and looked up at her, surprised. -What? Oh… er… no, I’m ok. -Nothing is that simple in life....

Agaetis Byrjun (A New Beginning) The thick crimson scarf, the traffic, her clicking boots, the headphones and all the rush. Delila’s going somewhere. ‘I’m on my way’, she says on the phone and walks briskly through the cold and the thick city noise. Sebastien’s studio is in a geometrically firm, white building, first floor. She rings the doorbell. She does not know yet that he prefers it when people knock. The anticipation of someone opening the door rises the senses, makes her vulnerable, uneasy, a bit awkward and still not sure why she is there....

I see you, its sudden Going to work in a frosted car. You look salty, it is morning. if I touch your line, will you vanish and dissolve into heaven Like sugar in served tea? So finally you’re sweet. Your earthy feet shed time and space are the same color as my eyes… For a moment the air embraces your blue, So you turn pink in shame, Such an astonishing, beautiful shame…...

Wind spirits, will you shutter me? I am a thoughtless cloud Cream-colored, I disrupt And smash against indigoes To turn blue pale Like the betweenness of these hills. My reclusion- but a weed In twisted forests With unknown remedies (We shall cure bewilderment). Ahead of time and spaces Between the vivid stars That stare, frozen From the palms of God, I look And question their existence, And in the end We turn unusually real....

Bark one Bark two Bark three Darting dots in silent sentences of the night Like darker mulberries On the mulberry tree of Nalbandyan 7, 2:40 am. Alas All this air can do Is stare in silence… Its eyes touch so softly That my mind obeys And lays itself down On a constant stream of dreams… Bark one Bark two Bark three You know? There are Buried deep Twisted, gnarled, soggy Roots of angels Who have chosen to become trees And make Oxygen Yet not prudence… Silence and insanity, friend Are born when we come detached And attached again And again In us, through us, towards Nowhere else but Predictability Simple and charming: And it is predictable, Father That during nights I write Instead of sleeping And slipping into hymns So that insanity would remain Subconscious And quiet Like the mulberry night tree On Nalbandyan 7, 2:50 AM....

Infinity it is And I have nothing Even inspirations that untie To flutter Between fireflies and lampposts Sidewalks and dim clouds Trees and empty bottles Drift into air So that I can Inhale And while I hold my breath I can write symphonies in motion. But Lord, I could be bounded in a nutshell And count myself king But instead I Wash the feet of existence And indulge My owning of nothing in anything at all....

I remember you once told me That they sit In strange, gauche poses Bringing comfort Only To bewildered rooftops On the purple universe… Dampness We slurp dampness from the midnight trees That become stunned clouds Above And forget to snow (It is only me, dear Wind Listening in you…) We can be like cello strings Trembling for music And when fingers touch We’ll stare At those passing strangers. They are here for just one night Whistling a tune about The selected snowflakes on the eyelashes of God....

Flaked Eyelashes of Snow by Ani Boghossian I remember you once told me That they sit In strange, gauche poses Bringing comfort Only To bewildered rooftops On the purple universe… Dampness We slurp dampness from the midnight trees That become stunned clouds Above And forget to snow (It is only me, dear Wind Listening in you…) We can be like cello strings Trembling for music And when fingers touch We’ll stare At those passing strangers....

When the world goes extremely koo-koo I like to hide in my closet And play sudoku on my phone… I can reach the last level By World War III, I’m sure… Today my phone’s batteries are low… So I cough a good deal of Guerlain on my shirt It all starts with oil paint Than the colors scream for Clint Mansell Because I’ve been painting the moon So the moon is high, my Jamaican friend Respect me for my shoes The flooring is deep....

Today I sat down in front of the piano The keys were telling me about Vanilla hills With lonely purple trees… Today in a glass of wine I saw two lips Who were reading the Illiad In ancient Greek… The grey sheets of the sky told me that Rain will fall all night And I still will be mortal Like these trees that have no name… Still, the wind tangoes with no one And soon prints will be written On the sand On which he’ll be walking To the destination of absurdism I smell him smoking Like a chimney in a German town… The drums are still hitting My heart Like some wild rock band… How long This space is spinning around my soul While my eyes search In a raindrop a whole ocean Through which whales move and I listen to their voices echoing With the viola… I want to slip from this roof And fall into a vortex Where flickering souls are Catching light from stars And I’ll find what i’m looking for… I will be writing till the stars Start giggling again With the moon smoking pot And when the dogs begin to growl Like jazz-men in a pub I will be free, Free from this square one…