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Posted by babylon crashing | Filed under Illustration and art
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mei-zhen and the black tip
04 Thursday Sep 2014
Category Archives: Illustration and art
maw
03 Wednesday Sep 2014
Posted in Illustration and art, photograph, Poetry, sonnet
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I drag your jaws, all those crowns, all those teeth,
ordinary, divine and forever.
Hard with age, frozen honey, like beneath
the tongue all those funny bumps. My lover
sends me rude photos of gods and strangers.
I dig down to find the bomb at the core.
That which leaves behind a mark, a stain, blurs
what we shall be. I thought that shock and gore
would rouse you up. “The shark is a maw
with teeth,” they claim, since it’s only the jaw
that lasts. Consume me whole, little goddess.
Like all divine powers I am in awe
of what you do. Promise that you will gnaw
until there’s nothing more and nothing less.
][][
note:
The shark in question is the extinct Megalodon, one of the ancient gods that swam our seas 1.5 million years ago, during the Cenozoic Era. Still, my first thought in elementary school when I discovered that such beasts of the southern wilds once roamed our planet was, “cool!”
ghost sista [pink ghost]
03 Wednesday Sep 2014
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Posted by babylon crashing | Filed under Illustration and art
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i met two who knew my name
25 Monday Aug 2014
Posted in Erotic, Illustration and art, Poetry, sonnet
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On the road I met two who knew my name
which is never a good sign. When angels
and ghosts know who you are, that sort of fame
only ends poorly. I don’t trust mortals
who claim to know what happens after death.
By life’s own definition no one can.
Mystics travel far. Yogis count each breath.
Skeptics laugh. We’re all sure what will happen
next, poor sods, and we’re all missing the point.
Perhaps I will leave with those two today,
perhaps not. I’m still in deep, my debt
unpaid and I want to tear up this joint,
run wild and be ignorantly blase.
There’s some knowledge that I don’t want just yet.
garcia lorca’s la guitarra [in english and armenian]
13 Wednesday Aug 2014
Posted in Illustration and art, Poetry, Spanish, Translation
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Note from the Translator:
I must apologize with my sorry attempts to bring a beautiful Spanish poem by Federico Garcia Lorca into both English (my mother tongue) and fantastic Armenian. I’ve been told on more than one occasion that both my grasp of Spanish and Armenian are comically pathetic, usually by native speakers, which is only fair. However, life is short and as far as I can tell there is nobody who lives near by to help in my translations, so I present these new labors, not because it is the best that you can find for free on the Internets but because it’s the best that I can do. You’ll find four versions here; the original Spanish, my English translation, and since not a lot of people can read pure, uncut Armenian, a transliteration version as well as the pure Heyeren. Hope it does not displease. Cheers!
][
LA GUITARRA
— Federico Garcia Lorca
Empieza el llanto de la guitarra.
Se rompen las copas de la madrugada.
Empieza el llanto de la guitarra.
Es inútil callarla.
Es imposible callarla.
Llora monótona como llora el agua, como llora el viento sobre la nevada.
Es imposible callarla.
Llora por cosas lejanas.
Arena del Sur caliente que pide camelias blancas.
Llora flecha sin blanco, la tarde sin mañana, y el primer pájaro muerto sobre la rama.
¡Oh guitarra!
Corazón malherido por cinco espadas.
][
[in English]
THE GUITAR
The crying of the guitar begins.
The glasses of dawn are broken.
The crying of the guitar begins.
It is useless to stop her.
It is impossible to stop her.
She weeps endlessly, as water weeps, as the wind weeps over the snow.
It is impossible to stop her.
She weeps for things remote.
The hot southern sands yearning for a white camellia.
A weeping arrow without target, evening without morning, and the first dead bird on the branch.
Ai, guitar!
Heart wounded by five knives.
][
[in Armenian, transliteration]
KIT’ARR
Sksvum e kit’arri lats’y.
Skahakner ein arravotyan kotrel.
Sksvum e kit’arri lats’y.
Anogut e lrrets’nel ayn.
Anhnar e lrrets’nel ayn.
Da lats’ e linum anverj, ayn lats’ e linum jri pes, ayn lats’ e linum nman k’amu nkatmamb dzyan.
Kit’arry artasvum e baneri hamar herravor.
T’yezh haravayin avazner klk’i spitak kamelianeri.
Lats’ e linum mez slak’y arrants’ npatakayin yerekoyan, arrants’ arravotyan, yev arrajin mahats’ats t’rrch’ni masnachyughi.
Ai, kit’arr!
Sirty mahats’u viravorvats e hing danakner.
][
[in Armenian]
ԿԻԹԱՌ
Սկսվում է կիթառի լացը:
Սկահակներ էին առավոտյան կոտրել:
Սկսվում է կիթառի լացը:
Անօգուտ է լռեցնել այն:
Անհնար է լռեցնել այն:
Դա լաց է լինում անվերջ, այն լաց է լինում ջրի պես, այն լաց է լինում նման քամու նկատմամբ ձյան:
Կիթառը արտասվում է բաների համար հեռավոր:
Թեժ հարավային ավազներ կլքի սպիտակ կամելիաների:
Լաց է լինում մեզ սլաքը առանց նպատակային երեկոյան, առանց առավոտյան, եւ առաջին մահացած թռչնի մասնաճյուղի:
Օ, կիթառ!
Սիրտը մահացու վիրավորված է հինգ դանակներ:
lapping thistledown
27 Sunday Jul 2014
Posted in Erotic, Illustration and art, Poetry
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wet as a swamp/ drowning between her thighs/ lapping thistledown
heat shimmers/ in the shade of her bedroom/ the widow goes down
two virgin boys/ all that defines me/ endless hunger, she said
he-she-he/ their teacher showed them how/ to enter together
my heroes are always/ undersexed with/ with the most vivid of imaginations …
my scandalous love affair with things that go bump in the night
23 Wednesday Jul 2014
Posted in Erotic, haiku, Illustration and art, Poetry
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Tags
art, damning erotic life, erotic poetry, grass stains on your knees, haiku, hard ghost, missing moon, things that go bump in the night, your husband's grave
your husband’s tombstone
between all the weeds I steal
our very first kiss
][
before dawn: nightfall
and my dead lover’s cock shall
rise, mount the hard ghost
][
grass stains on your knees,
your back, the palms of your hands,
inside you … the dead
][
spring’s last missing moon
this damning erotic life
the one that we choose
making the bread that the dead call lavash
22 Tuesday Jul 2014
Posted in Armenia, Disaster –- Pain –- Sorrow, Illustration and art, Prose
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Armenian fairy tale, Armenian Genocide, art, Der Zor, Medz Yeghern, prose, the dead are always talking
The dead are always talking; it is the living, in every age of gizmos and thingamabobs, who have forgotten how to listen.
“I died like this …”
Contrary to what you might believe these stories are told to anyone who can hear, regardless of kinship curse, haunting or vague homicidal family blood ties. Why is it that those who worship ancestors the most turn a deaf ear to their own tribe, let alone the tribe of their neighbors? That is a darkening of the soul. That is something the dead will not abide.
“… far out in a desert, a wasteland of salt, in the heat and stink of what the Turks call Der ez Zor …”
If you can hear stars sing you can listen to the dead. It is simple, for the dead are always talking with red adder’s tongue and the blessed silver owl light. A kiss in your mouth that leaves sparks. Sparks. If you can rub amber’s essence between your fingers you can listen to anything.
…“I was a girl, fey-wristed with curly black hair. I will tell you. I will tell you everything …”
You know some things, but never all. Der ez Zor was a place of suffering during the starving times. During the long walks. During the annihilation. The dead can tell you this because they remember the names. Names for everything. Names that you have been taught to ignore, that you’ve forgotten.
“… we called it Medz Yeghern, the Great Calamity. Remember what I tell you. Remember when the first signs of destruction were blown to us in the wind …”
I tell you about the fourteenth year in the new century. I tell you what I’ve heard because I am nothing and nobody. I can’t speak their language or read from their books. But the dead don’t care about grammar or poor translation or how verbs are conjugated. All they need is a willing audience.
“… when the wild horsemen came and burned down our crops, killing our fathers and husbands and son, telling us that we must go south, to the camps, to follow the relocation orders …”
These are not my kith and kin. These are not my blood soaked lands. Still — Medz Yeghern, the Great Calamity — fills my dreams and will not let me rest. Ever since I returned home from Peace Corps. Ever since I first tasted that strange flat bread that the dead call lavash.
mariam abandian [age 12]
16 Wednesday Jul 2014
Posted by babylon crashing | Filed under Armenia, Feminism, Illustration and art
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hellbent
15 Tuesday Jul 2014
Posted in Feminism, Illustration and art, Poetry, sonnet
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Tags
Armenian heroine, art, blood sister, hellbent, Mama warrior, Mariam Abandian, poem, Poetry, sonnet
Tonight let the rat steal the rice. The moon
is in love and even the starving flea
will be pardoned. Tonight, hunger, roughhewn
like love, goes down smooth. We’ve all been hungry.
We’ve all wished somebody would speak secrets
that are simply obvious. Big sister,
where is your story? Why aren’t the poets
singing about you? Mama warrior,
let me braid up your hair. I have no tongue
for tune, but for you I’ll sing any song.
Tonight, saddle up. The moon is absent
and the rat is full. No one else has sung
what you do. Sister, you’re my blood, headstrong
fairytale made flesh; violent and hellbent.
memories of my ghost sista 