He stood unbound, brilliant booming pitch Daring fame’s too short a lease to tire
An overworked Queen and a burst poet’s appendix orphaned Crazy uncles, old world advice, newspaper boy in cafe’s
Circulating telegraph messages on windy roads While genocide visited the Armenian Night
He discovered San Francisco and New York Flustered wasps, street walkers, huddled denizens
Gamblers, dancers, poor and burning Arabs, American foundation All the way up and down the Malaga vines.
He made Fresno and Paris come and go speaking brittle reflection Rivers of lust and untaxed piping pride, stories in starring flight.
He hung his hat tipped to the East Witty wicket waste, soaked in passionate delight
Vye, Vye, Vye, he would intone, smiling like an onion’s scrape By a mortal bite of life foretold to insipid academigaudy scorn
I once heard him confess Shaw was his inspiration, not the rest Hello Out There! he said to whomever I myself will inspire
While Miller, Karouac and Albee took their queues To burst through the gates and wound the engenues.
He was Saroyan to the end. A farmer’s boy, A poet’s son, an observant crier of Our Town
Highlands and merchants prancing in his glare Striking a portable typewriter, a machine gunner’s flare
Channeling Whitman, funneling impressionist colors Like butterflies captured on a punctured canvas
The daring young man, endless cartwheels in the sand
(Happy 100th Birthday William Saroyan: Thanks for the chiseled world of words That keep singing in my ears)
Bedros Afeyan 8-9-08 San Diego, CA