Tea Party On The Shore Of Arax River

There is a town beyond the river
and you may think
that all you have to do
is dare to step
on the timeless stones
of the river bed
fearless of murky waters.

There is a town beyond the river
where the dead hosts November guests
offering them tea
brewed in an English porcelain head.
That Kashmir perfumed tea
which captured Chardin's heart
while basking
in the visuals of an Isfahan garden
sipping and waiting
to meet his Majesty
and offer him the precious jewelery
that he carried there
with the greatest care
So secretly.


There is a town beyond the river
and I'm not yet there.
for I'am walking
on a tightrope
hang over the waters
of Arax River
with no rescue in view.

There is a town beyond the river
like a dream arousing desire
but I can't reach it
for I'm hang on a trapeze
outward a boat.
And try as you may
tiny English hands can't capture mine
on that thin line
for unlike in a circus show
there is no safety net.

The vacuous porcelain head
remains devoid of
strong sustainable words
capable of substituting tiny hands
lending itself willingly as a teapot
for the dead to brew their tea
for all November guests.

There is a town beyond the river
but I remain on the outermost side
of a stretched thin line
hang over the annihilating river
and fastened from shore to shore
by multitudes of solitude.

There is no town beyond the river
not even a hazy chimera
neither a dream nor a nightmare
only a tangible opposite shore
covered with rubbles of destroyed 'Khatchkars'
and the dead keeping on
their tea party
brewing for ever the aromatic
leaves of Camelia sinensis
in the emptiness
of an English porcelain head
for all those November guests
stepping on the timeless stones
of the river bed
fearless of murky waters
in search of shattered dreams
on the rubbles of the opposite shore
and the cherished taste
of that delightful tea
sipped slowly
out of an English porcelain head.

Flora

One Hundred Oysters

To Francis

One hundred oysters
to feast on an event in Life
that made me feel at times
a prisoner of life.

One hundred oysters
to feast on that moment
on a hill in Africa
when we thought
that an epic thing happened.

One hundred oysters
to remember our time
walking in a jungle
and coming upon Gorillas
too fast, too easy
for me to build
out of it
an adventurous story.

One hundred oysters
for our dream like time
a short distance South of the Equator
on the lac Kivu
feasting on Love delights
in a convent
where nuns busily paced
in the hallways.



And the time
contemplating zebras
while tasting with fingers
delicious fleshy tilapias.

Then as now
we were eager for Life
intoxicated with love
with a ravenous appetite for all
including hundreds of oysters.

We went on
celebrated life together
and the beginning of Time with our children
taking them with us to the feast of the world
in which we were lucky guests.

One hundred oysters
whose rough irregular shell
hides the delicious edible part
in the brine of sea water
just like the rough side of Life
fashioned after the shell of those mollusks
hided
the delicious, heavenly, edible part
of our love in the brine of life.

Flora

Walking On The Territories of Poetry

I'm now walking
on the once forbidden territories
on the edge of which
I lingered long ago.
Then left and went
to walk
on the paths of so called "Happyland."

For a long time
I lay down
and watched the spacious sky
searching among starry multitudes
my own wishes,
but all I saw
was missing pieces.


Saw worthless, wordless, reminiscences
saw 17th century bridges
crossed by forebearers
wanderers of Silk Roads
saw the shiny bullion
they carried back
for the expenses of the Court
in exchange for Dear Life.
Saw the earth's declining ochre
and the turquoise of minarets
colouring the structure of memory.

In the loneliness of a Zoersel sky
saw the loneliness of a Vera Fosty
hers, hang in a Baya sky.
Saw her words of poetry
like droplets of water
that nobody drinks anymore.
Saw Vera's Titles,
"Roses of Time"
"Added Value"
that most significant
of all her poems
along with the last one
dedicated to eternity
that "Last Poem"
with prayer words
to not become infatuated
with useless rhyme
are now unexpectedely
exquisite relevancies.

All the Walks
all the Arts
are now taking me
once again
not on the edges
but this time well into
Territories
where once I didn't dare to go
where words can freely
roam and play,
love each other
warble or trill
and make me quarry
rubbles
from inside me.

Flora

Lips sealed with the kiss of words

When lightness leave us
on an unbearable shore
you always give me
the gift of laughter
making it impossible
to let you go.
That cautious part of me
God where is it now
For I lost it among the graves.

'I could fall in love with you'
my old alley
Where November guests
walk
where beloved ghosts
walk
and where searching
among the graves
our lost caution,
you used your lips on mine.
It wasn't a childhood purple kiss
with a mulberry taste
nor was it the kiss of an old man and an old woman.
It had colours and texture
as on a canvas painted by you
it was souls kissing
and I knew all the colours
without ever seeing those on your paintings.
one early morning
drinking tea by the window
I'd marvelled on the subtle nuances of
the jujuba colored brew
while admiring the richness of
layered reds, turquoises,
white and blue,
yielding in the window framed sky
to the monochromatic grey
of the day.

Then as now
I knew these would be the colours
of our kiss
and the alleys I'll walk afterward
wouldn't have anything of
my childhood orchard alleys
but the alleys that kiss
will take me
will pull at

forgotten emotions
challenge beliefs
examine ones feelings and insecurities
and make us think.

if I use my lips on yours
we will walk
reflective alleys
where once uppon a time
souls of wisdom
whispered to you

´´kiss her you fool, don´t let her go, for amongst the stones you´ve found your soulmate´´

Flora

Words on Wet Lips

There is no safe shore
to land adrift
with you
my November guest,
lingering so stubbornly
on my skin
with whispering lips
wet with words declining
their very existence
with-holding from you
the right to use them
nevertheless going on...

"Thee's a soft breeze
on my cheek"

all the while
ceaselessly, mercilessly
life breaking sharp surfs
upon odd shoals
which can swallow
despite us thinking them
kindly shallow.


If you venture
with that vagrant
language drifter
once again
on the grounds of
souls needing their rest
there will be no room
for sorrow
nor for regrets

let go of your sorrow
my November guest
I found you among the graves
and we tucked our words together
mixing it up in beautiful whispers

you'll need to bring
your softest embrace
the most smooth
and the most soothing,
the most incautious
this time bold but wordless
and lay it upon
that vagrant,
language drifter.
Flora

For My Son

You used to come to my bed
and nestle your warm small body
beside me.
A beloved intruder
into the unique privileged moment
of my reading,
of my mind wandering in search of poetic words

I used to hold you tightly
and feel anything harsh in me
melt down into mild honey
used to hold in turns
your fingers or your toes
wishing that the moment be unending

The words flowing in then
being too mellow
too full of unrestricted love
words of bondage
words out of a silent scream
words too silly, too precious
to ever be useful
in a poem
unless composed by a mother.


Words that now sometimes I say to you
laughingly, loudly, happily
words that turns your beautiful big eyes
skyward!
throwing me and my laughter
outward!

Nowadays no more bed nestling
no more crying for me
no more jealousy
if a bit of my attention
goes to another little kid

nowadays your wish being
faraway from me
letting you
free and fully focused in the adolescent ways
with its splinters of thrills
and no more words come to me
powerful enough
to fulfill my wish
of offering you
written words of apprenticeship
which of course you'll never read
words that right now
rest in that deep place in me
in which I have stacked my books of love
and that I wouldn't let you
see the unbearable side of it

What I want now
is not you nestling beside me
but that rushing beat of life
in your eyes,
the hast to break free
away from my wish of
tucking you in your old safety blanket,
pierce all the mercurial beauty
of being alive and happy
of having your life ahead of you
I want you to keep for ever
your light and flighty ways of now
and later to master
the skills of balancing
that lightness into duress

I know some day you'll lower
your eyes
toward these words
it will be finally my moment
like the old mommy and me days
stolen from school days
so here are the words for that special moment
for I won't be there
to see those bright eyes of yours
hopefully always full of the same flighty lightness
reading words that express
the entire worth of life
just because of having you.
Flora

Feline Revenge Over The Use Of Forbidden Words

From time to time
you say hello to me
in a rushed manner
as if to solve a matter of emergency
and settle down back
in the layers of a mystery
known only
to a feline triplets
who might have committed a crime
in their own quest of poetry
or preserving Beauty

You come scarcely in touch with me
being caught in catty gossips
trying to weave
the surreal in the rational
concocting a novel about a Beauty
with the features of a Nefertiti
then letting it simmer
with the felines in it
toying with you.

All the while I'm sitting here,
sending you intimacy
which is lacking in this tongue of yours
that "you"
exacerbating distance
against my

"tu me acercas y me dejas,
a quien offreces tu caricia?"

all of it despite the canonics
of Strunk and White
in their Elements of Style,
cautionning to not play pyrotechnics
with foreign words.

Don't they know
that those intimate foreign words
are nothing more than
composites of complex identities
homeless in language
facing the dilemma of words
flowing and opening their way
in a O! so foreign language.
And you go on:

"For someone who doesn´t have English
as their native tongue
you sure do know how to use it."

Poets do
writers too.

with no country in one language
they can move
from the rythm of a mother tongue,
into the ones in which
they are denizen foreigners.

There is Khader Abdolah
born on the shore of "Sefidegani"
weaving the heights of his musical Farsi
into the depths of a nebulous Nederlands
clearing skillfully all haziness
with the pyrotechnic of his "show off" words


There was the time
when you said to me
that I was a "bonus" in your life
the overtone carried by this word
in your own mother tongue
being more at home
in the premium of a loan
rather than in conveying poetry.

tossing words carelessly
in the world of Poetry
will be messing up with felines
and not only papery triplets
untidying things in your rooms
forcing you to move
up and down while you long
to run along the coast
letting the surreal
flow into your artistic juices
and replace the lack of craziness
so that the poetry outcome
might even surprise the three furtive beasts.
And maybe stops them
from delightfully bullying you
browsing into your words
unearthing the forbidden ones
relentlessly throwing it at you
and planning revenge
over words such as "bonus"
in exchange for "exquisite irrelevance"
out of mischivious threads
in all of our stories.
Flora