Tag Archives: Armenia

chums & the eight of cups

16 Friday Sep 2022

Posted by in Armenia, Poetry, self-portrait, sonnet

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Q: What is the meaning of the Eight of Cups?

For me, the Eight of Cups is all about how we deal with problematic situations … and by “deal” I mean running away from it. It is a card full of disappointment and regret. This isn’t about being judgmental; the world is full of horrible, no-win situations that only get worse the longer we stay with them. It’s why we have the term, “Survivor’s Guilt,” which often accompanies PTSD. Free will can only take us so far. Or, as Goldsmith reminds us: “He who fights and runs away/ May live to fight another day;/ But he who is battle slain/ Can never rise to fight again.”

That might be true, but often it does not heal a spirit broken by shame and guilt. They say you never know how you’ll react during war until you’ve actually fought in one. I haven’t. I’ve been nearby but that’s not the same. A memory of my time in Peace Corps came back to me yesterday so I wrote this:

All through red suns at dusk. All through dark suns

at dawn. Those low rumbles. I’ve heard thunder.

I’ve heard earthquakes. Neither sound deafens

nor numbs me utterly like gun powder.

Once, while drunk (I was always drunk) some chums

and I drove to the outskirts of Artsakh,

“to watch the fireworks.” Back when my eardrums

were still naïve over certain noise. Raw

and green. The border guards turned us away.

Being dumb we parked on a hill to eyeball

the «pff-boom» flashes down in the valley.

That’s called privilege: turning someone’s doomsday

into drinking games. Fireworks fell. Nightfall

fell. We drank … numbing their rage and fury.

Armenia and Azerbaijan have been fighting for decades over an area of land called Artsakh (formerly known as Nagorno-Karabakh). While geographically it has been claimed by Azerbaijan its inhabitants are Armenian and since the fall of the USSR Artsakh has been a democratic republic, mainly unrecognized by the rest of the world. The First Nagorno-Karabakh War lasted from 1992–1994. I was living in Yerevan in 1997 while shelling and guerrilla warfare were still going on. It wasn’t the only military conflict happening in the area, though. That same summer I watch plumes of smoke billowing from the foothills around Mt. Ararat as Turkish troops battled Kurdish resistance fighters.

suckerish

13 Sunday Jan 2019

Posted by in Erotic, Poetry, sonnet

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You filled my mouth with copper, blood and brine.
Under your skirt, tongue in your moist split mound,

“t’avshya vosku hank’” — your velvet goldmine.
We’d been dancing, a waltz-grind. You had frowned

when the kissing stopped. Romance requires
restraint. Rise and fall of hips, amazing

pangs no nun ever warned about, desires
obscene. I didn’t notice how sopping

you had become until your thighs rested
on my neck. Gyumri is full of despised

daughters. I too am cast-off, suckerish
for the shamed. In with copper, brine and blood

I taste your mother-lode. Pleasure surprised
you. Your giggle was more than I could wish.

NOTE:
Gyumri is a city in northwestern Armenia where I lived for two years as a Peace Corps volunteer. Despite some progress in recent years women are still viewed as second-class citizens by many in that country. “T’avshya vosku hank’” (թավշյա ոսկու հանք) is the Armenian equivalent of “velvet goldmine,” Victorian slang for cunt.

mercy

27 Thursday Dec 2018

Posted by in Armenia, Disaster –- Pain –- Sorrow, Poetry, self-portrait, sonnet

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Christmas Eve’s “No First Drink” Recovery
Meeting. The reek of Pall Mall in the air.

Don’t talk now. Don’t stand out. Not of Gyumri.
Not of dead orphans. Not of the nightmare

that haunts you from Nagorno-Karabakh.
Everyone here carries their own horrors.

Right now just listen, just be present. Black
humor, Lilith’s mercy, depraved lovers

kept you, if not lucid, at least sober …
but not tonight. You woke. You sit and grieve,

nod and listen. You love these survivors.
You love everyone but yourself. No prayer

will heal what you conceal under your sleeve,
under your burn scar, your broken knuckle.

kakhard

30 Tuesday Oct 2018

Posted by in Armenia, Erotic, Poetry, sonnet

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After school I fingered you senseless. Filled
your mouth with more than quarrels over craft.

Left you soppy and brooding with my spilled
seed smeared across your lips. That word, I laughed

at what you called me: “kakhard.” It means witch.
Perhaps. I have blasphemed in the churchyard

of your arse sure enough. Made your clit twitch
with just my stare. Perhaps I am, “kakhard,”

and these dark Armenian arts the spell
that has ensnared you each time the school bell

rings, each time you knock on my door. Each time
kissing turns astonishing and sublime

while I lift the hem of your pleated skirt —
More. Touch me more. Make me hurt. Make me squirt.

Note:
In Armenian, “կախարդ,” is the word for witch.

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night tide

28 Saturday Nov 2015

Posted by in Armenia, Erotic, Poetry, quote unquote, sonnet

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The drowned girl said, “be rougher, I don’t mind.”

In the old tongue — a tongue that I couldn’t

speak well. The lake water had made me blind

so I clung to her wide hips as her cunt

covered my mouth, my chin. In the night tide

the small waves inched over us. I could feel

her bent forward, pressing down, as she tried

to gag me -drown- while her wild mane went eel-

like, all hither and yon. I’ve walked Sevan’s coast,

the drowned outnumbers the living. Thirty

years-old; wild hair rose up, like — dark like, kelp —

a voice that called from the lake. Carmine’s ghost

calling, “Yeranut’yun.” — Bliss. The way she

pulled back and said, “you naughty little welp.”

][][

note:

In Armenian, the word for bliss is, “yer’an’ut’yun,” (երանություն).

— Babylon Crashing

the children of arba lijoch

17 Saturday Oct 2015

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— for Kwame Dawes

Crown Prince Ras Tafari brought the children
of Arba Lijoch out of the desert —

Orphans who became Ethiopian,
who sang of the Metz Yeghern, the Great Hurt;

composed, “Marsh Teferi,” the first music
Marcus Garvey heard while in audience.

I, too, have heard of, “Natural mystic
blowing/ through the air,” Ararat’s fragrance

in each word. I’m told, Babylon crashing.
Where in Kingston is the orchestral sound

of Addis Ababa? — I listen — I
listen, but the dance halls tell me nothing.

The ghosts of Van hang low in the background.
Who will sing their song? Tell their prophesy?

Notes:
Arba Lijoch were a group of forty Armenian orphans who had escaped from the 1915 atrocities in Turkey, and were afterwards adopted by Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia. He had met them while visiting the Armenian monastery in Jerusalem; they impressed him so much that he obtained permission from the head of the Armenian church, the Catholicos, to adopt and bring them to Ethiopia, where he then arranged for them to receive musical instruction. The Arba Lijoch arrived in the capital city, Addis Ababa, in 1924, and along with their conductor, Kevork Nalbandian, became the first official orchestra of the nation. Nalbandian also composed the music for Marsh Teferi (words by Yoftehé Negusé), which was the Imperial National Anthem from 1930 to 1974. Metz Yeghern is the Armenian word for their Great Calamity, their genocide.

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quote unquote

11 Friday Sep 2015

Posted by in Armenia, Prose, quote unquote

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During the night a cold mountain rain fell, turning the dusty cobblestones of Atabekyan Street into a long, quaggy blotch, so that when the three-legged dog with the pepper-stump and heavy teats hobbled over to the front gate to meet the young foreigner once he finally staggered out into the chill morning air, skull throbbing with a grievous hang-over his neighbors had good-willingly inflicted upon him the night before, she was already soaked up to her haunches in mud.

Despite the protests of his landlady he had been leaving out dishes of cold cuts bought at the outdoor shuka-market for the dog, for he figured that she must have pups hidden away somewhere in the hollows of the nearby rubble that was all that was left of the neighborhood, house-fronts spilling out into the street in huge piles of pink stones.

“Ah, Mama Shun, dear, stay warm while I’m gone,” he said, bending down to pet her worn nape, hastily brushing away the fleas that rose up in a black mist to coat his hand.  

Far down the earthquake-rippled street the local children were out, shrieking, playing some sort of game of tag. He knew most of their names — Mayranush, Little Aram, Jbduhi, Takavor, Arpi, Isahag — and, off to one side, the small twisted girl that the rest of them shunned, Lusine-jan. She wavered in the morning air with her shaven skull and wide, unblinking eyes as the others kicked up spurts of mud in the numerous potholes. Unlike the others, in their summer dresses and raffish vests, Lusine was clothed for the on-coming winter, with heavy tights and a quilted, stained skirt. Like the three-legged dog she moved slowly through the street, weirdly jerkily, her downcast eyes avoiding his eyes as he passed by.

from Ghost City: a memory

lilit shakhkyan

15 Tuesday Jul 2014

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lovely

We live in a world desperately full of children needing love and support. I repost everything the SOCIETY FOR ORPHANED ARMENIAN RELIEF (SOAR) posts because I deeply believe in everything they do.

Mari Izmirlyan Orphanage is a state orphanage in Yerevan housing approximately 100 children with special needs between the ages of 6 and 18. The SOAR Sponsorship Program is the primary mechanism through which SOAR provides support to specific orphaned Armenian children. Each week we highlight an orphaned Armenian child. This week, we highlight Lilit Shakhkyan at Mari Izmirlyan Orphanage.

Lilit has a serious hearing disability. In 2011, SOAR contributed to the costs of ear surgery for Lilit in which a Baha device was implanted in her ear. Lilit currently attends a special school for the hearing impaired.


Lilit likes to be in the focus of attention. She likes to participate in individual trainings, to play with constructive games, play with dolls, and play with bright-colored toys. She does not like to communicate with peers. She can compare objects and find similarities and differences. Mostly she communicates with facial expressions and behavior. Her future aspirations are to develop social skills, to use voice for communication, and to pronounce sounds.

If you would like to sponsor Lilit, please contact George S. Yacoubian, Jr., at gyacoubian@soar-us.org or enroll through the Sponsorship Program by selecting Lilit from Mari Izmirlyan. Thank you in advance for your support!