Words Hang In The Guileful Time

If happiness can be a 'state', it can only be a state of excitement prodded by unfulfillment ... Bzygmunt Bauman, The Art of Life.




It's a frost sprayed day
In a dazzling, unforgiving
pee stained town
and guileful Time
plays a game
with cunning Fate
urban wingless birds
are wandering the grounds
Their eyes catching the game,
while winter
blow up falls last attempts.
The sky indigo-colored
fruit stalls offering cheer to the season
ruby red of a pomegranate
turned black when concentrated and bottled
sweet scents of pale yellow quinces
turned red while preserved
a sharp pocket knife cutting
the oddly sunny firm flesh of a persimmon
all tribute to the poetry of the season
to the beauty of the turn offered
To those privileged
to take the now and then
into eternity.
to ride unbridled horses
in the wilderness of the mind's eye
Fate and Time keeping on their games
crossing swords of words
sharply slaughtering
the caress of a breezy love
and the sad voice of a castrato,
Left Behind
in a century in Which
there is no stage for castrati voice
but a cold stony corner,
and no other choice
than trailing behind
indifferent passerbys
Hugo's ghost hovering over
The tiny cafe tables
where heavenly hot chocolates
are steaming,
and lovers are huddling and giggling.
For a split second
Time and Fate are humbled
thus, they lower swords
and a flight of words
immediately hang in the indigo sky
The castrato's voice is scissored
and thrown into naught
wingless urban birds
lift dying eyes
on the right contrasting colors
of pomegranates, quinces and persimmons
now altered into the domesticity
of jars and bottles
jam and preserves,
all shelfed artfully
and the instant
with its remanent of unfulfilled happiness
to grab and to take into eternity
is thrown into naught too.

Flora Yeghoumians

Painting A Libretto

Forget all rules, forget all restrictions, as to taste, as to what ought to be said, write for the pleasure of it...

William Carlos Williams


Walking alone
on the leafy paths
of Kempen woods
A whole slew of words
vain, thorny, mute
with neither an onset
nor an ending
cradled in mighty unsettling colours
scoff into my flesh
while I'm scoffing to their nonsense.

I bolt their way
but the beastly ones
have a ravishing power
to emerge from the abyss
into which I push them.
So I guzzle them up
voraciously
and they go in "All That Jazz"
joyful or mournful
on and on
in a wicked ballet
of jeering and sneering.

they get drunk
by their own beauty
their own wit and virtuosity
they burst into aesthetics
I feel restraint
they feel freedom
in wild words from a stranger
and they give in
to brilliant pyrotechnics.

They are sloe colored
like a shrub of blackthorn
portent, entrancing
dipped in purple, magenta, crimson
of vascular systems
all nuances off claret
those sensuous words
conceived in the stream
of conscious desire
frozen in ultra and aquamarine
of some northern sky.


When they give in to nostalgy
they are mute, sullen
Their thorn chiseling away
on my heart
as if it was a tombstone
in the lonely forgotten rest yard
of all my beloved ghosts
where I can't find their stone
cause through storms and Time
they have moved around
and I have lost them.

I go back home
lay down and let them get trapped
in the fibers of my mattress
their splashing colours lost
to my beloved departed

Infinite empty spaces
Infinite silence.
in my whole being.

Elusive forms
impossible to capture
ripened along the line
of the Time
fading colours
invisible shapes
coming close
to a silky greige
or an earthly ochre
or the undefinable colours
of rubbles in the bed
of a dried up forgotten river.
They give an uneasy feeling
to the daring
who ventures into their slew.


Conceived in the embrace
of a stillness
nearing death
they inflict wounds
to the living
and it's then that I realize
the power of written words
over all Art forms
it's then that I let loose
the crescendo fight between music and words
forgetting all rules, all restrictions,
I write for the pleasure of luring
untamed words from the souls
of Oh! Père Lachaise
into my one and only libretto.

Flora

Words Ripened In The summer's Breath

I'm a sigh in a dark chant
The night's pupil in an abstract gaze
closely snuggled with words
out of a Colm Toïbin's world.

I'm an audacious
yet mellow sigh
in the breath of a perfect stranger's
hollow, cavernous desire
expressed in words
that are unborn
unconnected, unsought
sailing on a yellow wave
from the heart to the toes
and through that stranger's street
where they nestle in the cracks
in between old bricks paving the road
like colourful unknown flowers
patching the monotonous green
of a well groomed garden
visible only
to gifted eyes
able to sweep the scarce, unlighted
disheartening spaces.

Words that are bold and juicy
like crimson figs
from undefined faraway places
missing in dictionaries
but persistently hang
in the young summer's breath
slowly ripening
among myrtle growing in marshes
or in between promiscuous café tables
on which old friends exchange confidences
with overtones of news in brief.

Words that were safely tucked away
under the wood panels
of a bed room.
Then came an icy winter
crying out for hearth fire
that burned down the panels
exhibiting the words underneath
on cold concrete walls
now ready
to be fiercely expressed
without the help of summer staples.


A whole slew of words
swarming on the sweaty skin
of prurient bodies
within the tips of the fingers
yet moving
in the yonder
and resisting
to be framed
in a nonsense poem
or any other twaddle.


Words
inhabiting the guest house in me
where I gather them together
in the fading light of drizzly evenings
to play a vivid and sometimes cruel game
endlessly through the night
and the morning's light wrap haggard faces
both mine and theirs
so unexpectedly
that I let them run loose
once again
in the realm of untamed
while the world focuses
on getting up on its feet
and someone somewhere in the world
has already composed
a gentle love poem

"I love you and the ground
you walk upon."

Words whose beauty
is defined by the unreachable
by distance and parting
and the tears that are
an intellectual thing.
words that are intruder
into the intimacy of others
desultory words
trying to regain
over life's putrefaction
all the while knowing
that the day's impression
and the night's perception
are not resumed in poetry
but in good mornings
and good nights
from strangers
in the obscure gaze of whom
are sunk
redundant words
like fragments in a poem
hang to the sighs
in the sorrowful chants
in the abyss of tears
in the depths of eyes
glazed by the drizzle
of an ending summer
and I'm for ever
snuggled in them.

Flora

A Choreography of Absence

Absence
is a word
filling the void in me
Only one word
perpetuated by Time
and I'm trying to live
with no pain.
Absence
is what makes up my no pain world.

Absence
of those beloved
filling enclosed moments
which were like a feast I gazed upon
through the eyes of a happy child.
Gazed upon
the beauty of decaying fruits
under the trees bordering the alleys
where I was once grafted to the earth
and watched the slender meandering bodies
of worms performing their dances.
Alley's running among the trees
whose length's now
measures up to my solitude.


Absence
of those beloved
filling enclosed moments
which were like a feast I gazed upon
through the eyes of a woman in love.
Gazed upon
in the sometimes confused thoughts and feelings
and sometimes in the clarity that comes
in the repose between two love makings
a clarity letting you see
that there is no blossoming
no growth and no alleys
where run wild and happy
no worms to perform any dance
but the one of absence
of a shadow
I'll perpetuate in me.

Absence
filling up the void in me
conjugated to those sorrows
that Time is inseminating
so inevitably
in all of us.
Alleys, now virtual
where loitering brings
happiness of a virtual kind
much like x's send by text
mornings and nights
substituting kisses
the warmth of which
can't be performed
by the silvery, cold
and flickering screen.
The eyes, now of an older woman
see through it
only a left over impression of
last night's moon.


Absence
that makes you think
that Life is just a street,
sometimes a leafy quiet avenue,
other times
a busy highway,
the encounters with passers-by
come and fade away
and though some shadows remain
Absence
is the permanent feature of that street
in which I came upon a Shelter
with bread, cheese, wine
and love and passion
and it was a feast
to gaze upon
to include
in the alleys of those enclosed moments
loitering the memory
in which virtual worms still perform
their meandering dances
in boneless bodies
grieving absences
perpetuated by Time.

Flora

The Gaze Of The North Sea

À ma soeurette

In the fading afternoon light
and the cold air
suffused with delightful saltiness
ma soeurette is waiting for me.
Her silhouette,
cutting the perfect parallel
of horizon and shoreline
beyond which, I see
the grayish North Sea.



Upstairs, in the tiny apartment
delicious lovingly brewed tea
some fruits and a sandwich,
just the way I like it,
are awaiting me.
We nibble and chat
sip tea and enjoy gossips
before going down
to stroll on the beach.


We walk together
through the thousands shades
off the Belgian gray
and some white
splashed here and there
the mist clinging over the North Sea
The world turning itself
into a comfy place
just for my little sis and me.

Walking.
My bare toes dipped in North Sea's
cold waters
while she soaks herself
in the worries
of me catching cold
or any other possible sickness
from the icy, murky waters.
I remind her,
my incorrigible little sis
of the

Antwerp's lunch time rules

but to no avail
as she goes on carrying
that whole load of worries
she never once puts down.


It's only she and me
like when we were kiddies
and she took my magazine money
in which was published
a little story written by me
to buy it and bring it kindly to me.
Instead she went on
treating herself to a huge bottle of Pepsi
and asked my help to finish it off!
Now in her early fifties,
she prefers to bring me
the comforts of some gingery candies
while we are both stealing
a little time from Time
to treat ourselves
to the unique cosiness
of being just she and me.


Looking into her eyes,
I can see how much they've kept
now as then, plenty of playful questions
yet readily furnishing mischievously silly answers,
much like the time
she could solve dilemmas
such as the very existence of Santa
telling me , the older sister

" when you were sleepin'
Santa came and winked at me
wanted to wake you up to meet him
but the old man put his finger on his lips
ushering me into silence and secrecy
then he took out our gifts
yours, the usual bounty of books
mine the same easy-to-break toys
and put it on our night tables
then it was time
for an accomplice's smile
and another quick wink
before he vanishes
like chimney smoke into thin air."

that child with dark eyes and dark straight hairs
skillful to make me cry
with a lie
nobody could straighten up
without shattering
a big part of the childhood.

That dark haired little girl
with fringes wetted and combed
in the neatest range
just above the curious eyes.
Eyes in which danced tiny stars
now gazing upon the gray sea
reflecting back
the sadness visiting our souls.
all the while,
a leftover light
from a pale sun
faking brightness playing over the waters
reminding me of the lure of icicles
hang on our childhood Christmas trees
in that old family house
with its great balcony
running all the way
along the rooms
with arched two story doors
and aquamarine see through knobs,
opening to the sights of
its then imposing colonnades
in the eyes of children
and beyond to a garden
with two sunken symmetrical parterres
of Isfahan's roses
and a pomegranate tree,
now uprooted as we are
and planted above our father's grave,
through which the late afternoon sunlight
played thousands of shades
off the then crimson of its fruits
now fallen and decaying
on our father's tombstone.
Off the indescribable blue of tiles
and the silky greige of the patterns
hand painted on the white walls
or the high ceilings
with arch curved in every corner
here and there miniature mirror works
like sparkling reflections
of our own kiddy gaze
which now,
in the threshold of old age,
searches reflections
of lonely souls
from whom their own world
has been taken away,
in the unlikely gaze of the North Sea
on the shore of which
we are standing now
contemplating a world
in which we are to become old,
devoid of our beloved grand-parents antique clock
whose hands we could playfully, endlessly
turn back and forth.

Flora

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