Homeland, unicorn, soul and other magical fantasy words

A nostalgia fueled collection of media and musings for people in places I used to know. The views and opinions represented on this blog are my own and do not represent those of the US Department of State, Fulbright Program, or IIE. This blog is not an official Department of State website.

[v0chinch]

Poetry is no place for a story. If you are looking you will not find one here. Instead let me show you three generations of Maltese men at the vegetable shop, the aroma of asphalt after the rain, and the pet parrot across the street. I am no author; I am a bird on a balcony content in my cage, distilling days into language and whistling for the passerby who cares to listen.

[v0chinch]

Heritage

I can trace you

over the curvature of my nose. 

I know the magic word 

is yours, handed down,

given back, ears, and tongue.

But language does not open doors - 

not my language, anyway.

The entryway to the beyond

is lost in a shape-shifting concept 

called country. The dead are no longer

there. Their words are no longer

there. There is no longer there. 

And yet I lie all day

looking for what

you left.

Your futility

is beyond me,

behind me, inside me.

Every now and then

I want to burn you

like I burn my bad poems

but you are my body

of work. Your music -

on the days I want to call it music -

plays over the ash of everything.

[v0chinch]

House Museum

Don’t be afraid 

of what will happen

but of what people will think.

A man told me this to prepare me

for life in Armenia. I think my country

is not my country. I write this down

like men who came

before me only Tumanyan’s house

is in Lori marz and Saryan’s house

is in Yerevan.

I, I live inside this poem

because when I buy fruit

past 8pm and the neighbors talk

I am not scared of words

or rabid dogs. 

I am afraid

that home and by extension

homeland hide only homemade bruises.

I’m afraid that if someone pulls my hair out

at the roots and I scream my scream will not

be framed in any national gallery. I am afraid

this poem is the safest place I have

to be woman and

to call myself another homemaker

who will never have a house museum.

[v0chinch]

Tasseography

Someone left

an empty coffee cup

in an empty country, failed to read

the future of armenian

in English.

[v0chinch]

The Soul in A Body

by

YEHOSHUA NOVEMBER

is like an old Russian immigrant

looking out his apartment’s only window.

Yes, yes, he says.

The landlord printed my name in block letters

on the lobby directory

decades ago.

All correspondence

has been forwarded to this address.

But I am not from here. I am not

from here at all.

[v0chinch]

When it dies please burry

my Armenian face down

so truth can project

from the back

of its skull.

Or scatter what remains

like salt over the borscht.

Do as I do; pretend

it makes sense

in your mouth.

Let it go; let it dance

circles in the sky.

I will live to tell about it

in English and apologize

for nothing besides forgetting.

Soon we will have no way

to interrogate the night,

our only living witness.

Within the borders of this poem

I am the illuminator. I convert

words into pomegranates and watch

them stain everything

they touch.

[endless-unfolding]

To live in this world you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal; to hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on it; and, when the time comes to let it go, to let it go.

Mary Oliver, from “In Blackwater Woods,” in Wild Geese: Selected Poems (via a-pair-of-ragged-claws)

[shitmystudentswrite]

Even in New Jersey

All too often we ask a question assuming we already know that answer but end up with an answer that wasn’t even thought of yet. This is true even in New Jersey. 

[v0chinch]

Today I re-visit

Malibu, California

where I wait at the wall

of a gated community.

I leave my name with security

for permission to spend time below

someone who is no longer

a friend. From this angle

I notice for the first time

my boots are dirty; I want

to cut off my ankles

and hide them

in the hedge.

But oil painted likenesses

of the family are watching.

They see children leave

the the table to tan

their arms.

They hear strangers

in the kitchen ask how

we like our eggs.

That whole weekend

I gasped for air

I could afford.

Wealth, it, divides.

Since birth I have invested

in the literary exchange. I turn words

into more words and hoard them greedily

in my bra. Do I not donate what I see to charity

for the tax return?

Who am I 

to promote myself

to the position of Describer?

Why do I withdraw

gall

temerity

presumption

high-brow 

opulence

if not to waft

or wave in your face?

Come inside. Let me give you

the grand tour. My house is built 

from poems that keep me in

and leave you out.

[v0chinch]

I see stories

from Armenia stuck

to the inside of a tonir.

Let them leave

and they will feed you.

Keep them

where they are

and they will settle

unsleeping in a bed of coal.

I do not know Armenia,

I knew an idea of Armenia

and I have since rinsed it off

in a foreign sea.

The sun has left me

brittle and hard,

coated in a film

of transliteration.

Stack this poem

with the others

high in layers.

Let drops of water

from distant lands -

if water can be from

anywhere really -

rehydrate us.

Here in English

all is not lost: Armenia

like the pomegranate

stains everything

it touches.

[v0chinch]

You are forever

a transliteration.

You are without

meaning

and intelligible

only to readers

with knowledge

of two systems.

You are the (sorry)

emulation.

Name on the left.

Նամե on the right.

This is the first

mapping mistake

from which you

cannot escape.

This is the first

mapping mistake

that explains

why you won’t

find all the women

you are in one book.

[v0chinch]

We are doubly suspended - here

on this island and on this balcony.

Sand in water, dust in air,

particles will settle

or separate.

If we are given one 

measly acre to cultivate,

then mine is in Armenia, contrived

or invisible like a unicorn or a soul.

But I see him daily, his cigarette

and the mojitos in my hands.

While he is designing

roads I might take to work

if I went to work

I am diluting my voice

into a simple syrup

and watching it evaporate.

I am in the kitchen wiping words

from countertops and forcing

another unwritten poem

into the oven.

[v0chinch]

You do not need an architect

if you are building a home

under 170 square meters

in France.

You taught me this. 

But I am creating

with you, something

extraordinary in its quiet

simplicity.

We do not have a dog, a dishwasher

or a common flag.

Just two beautiful 

stories. There is such promise

in our partnership

a union of builders -

a writer and an architect - 

who pave roads

and venture fearlessly

into the structurally unsound

together.

After each collapse, 

we discover what we do not know,

what we could not say that we can say now

and we find each other again 

and again.

I want to keep

this now forever

but the q on your keyboard

is in the wrong place.

You will be with me,

I will be with you,

for only as long

as we love. 

At night,

when we leave

both balcony doors open

and a breeze shudders through

our corridor and down to the port,

I can sometimes peer inside

not the after but our half-life.

I am standing alone again

among ruins and my hands are cradling  

a memory. It is not hungry,

It is not sobbing, it is not sorry.

We are always left

with blue prints and

these are more

than enough.

[penamerican]

“The very reason I write is so that I might not sleepwalk through my entire life.” ― Zadie Smith

[v0chinch]

Double-Ended Hull

It makes sense

that I should find myself

at home on an island

where ancient boats

with prescient eyes quip,

“Malta is like Armenia

with palm trees.”

[v0chinch]

Sisterhood

You were for me

whatever it is

I still am

so I cannot help

but feel rejected

in my own way.

We were close - 

we are close - 

but there are now spaces

in which I cannot flatten myself

to fit beside you.

Does the abstract meaning

attached to we

signify anything

different?

In the hospital,

the nurses helped,

the Ketamine helped,

and you turned to say

It didn’t hurt - 

only when you breathed,

heavily.  Your shoulders

have moved away 

from your ears

and, standing taller, 

like me, you

take initiative

take control, carve from life

your own irrevocable transition.

But you also take a scalpel to sisterhood

and there is a compression vest around this word.

Maybe part of it

is missing or maybe part of it

should never have been there.

You have committed

the inconceivable, linguistically.

Whoever the we is

that emerges from this experience

will peel back the gauze

when we are ready

to reveal a new body

of language with which to re-shape

those beautifully bruised ties

that forever bind

us, together.

[v0chinch]

Perhaps my kind was not meant to belong to any place. After all you told me once 'Your fate is the gypsy's fate.'