Vahan Takeyan, Georgi Tenno
Love poems! He was a love poet
Writing happy pieces in Armenian
In 1915.
He must have looking at the falling shadows
And tried not to let them darken his work
Love poems.
He was one of a few to escape
Most in the cities were shot
Before the other million
He was left in sudden silence
But all he used to write
Were love poems.
He tried. He knew he must carry the burden
One of the few literate left
He must have cursed his skill
Now unfit for its needed use.
He tried.
God, he wrote, do not offer us
The consolation of Heaven
The amends for our pain
We have seen too much. We choose Hell
Keep your paradise for the Turk.
Those words the only answer he had left.
Passing challenge,
Passing effort,
Passing fancy,
Passing dust.
Passing over,
Passing unseen,
Passing echo,
Passing rust.
Passing quickly,
Passing silent,
Passing dream
No longer seen.
Athlete. He was an athlete
An outspoken sailor in Russia
In 1948.
He was brave, he said what he liked
He was sent to the Gulag, imprisoned,
an athlete.
He decided that he must escape
He should do anything necessary
He looked at his jailor
And thought that he could escape in his clothes
If he darkened his pale cheeks with the man's blood
Then run, an athlete.
He escaped. He and another man
Were among the few who left
But they had to go far, fast
So they made their way to the river
He escaped.
They met a couple travelling by raft
And he knew he should be a pirate
But he saw that they had a white kitten
And he froze before this sudden incarnation
He couldn't do it, he was caught
His conscience was all he had left.
Running quickly,
Running empty,
Running slowly,
Running out.
Running distance,
Running endless,
Running further,
Running doubt.
Running tired,
Running over,
Running truth
Never to move.
They died bitter, I think
Time running past
Only a few words left
A last cold reminder
This could happen, is happening,
Defiance is all that is left.
Copyright 2000 Rich Puchalsky
E-mail: rpuchalsky@worldnet.att.net
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Last modified: June 9, 02000