MOLORAK / PLANET
DAILY DIGEST
Haik Hrair (Yegyan) was born in Armenia.
Since 1988, he has been living in Los Angeles.
He has written and published 3 book's
"Hot Land", "Manna Grain" and "Soul Map".
Two times, he won first prize "Armenian Allied Arts Association"
for poetry.
To get any of two times award winnning
poet: Haik Hrayr's 3 books contact:
HAIK HRAIR (YEGYAN)
Angels...
Angles have ascended to the earth
Harmonizing with our earthly cares.
Today a voice called out to me, 'my dear,
Come out of your sufferings pure!'
A velvety touch caressed my fingers
Leaving a chaste, peaceful comfort.
Oh, from the light of those airy wings
I have turned into a fiery illumination.
Angels have ascended to the earth
People, in your sufferings stay pure!
IN AMERICA
1.
Arman my friend born in LA
who is a musician and philosopher
says
I don’t know if I’m more Armenian than American.
Turned into a duduk*
I’m playing myself—
with the fingers of an American—
playing duduk jazz!
Shall I dance shalakho** or hip-hop?
In what language shall I dance?
Thus “duplicated” he says
I’m just groping and cannot dig
how our sad duduk
turned into a jazz instrument
in my soul.
My friend who likes to “undergo,”
“givinghimself a hard time at this.
has written a piece of jazz—
Solo With Duduk…
2.
This night wouldn’t turn into a poem,
my sleeplessness wouldn’t rhyme.
My neighbor, an American,
A white-haired Irishman with a sense of humor,
says:
It’s become harder to read poems
than write ’em.
I, he says, for instance,
haven’t read for about half a century
although I know
there’s one “armenian” writer in this world—
Shakespeare.
In the dead of the night
where my neighbor’s dogs are trying
to rhyme their bark,
to share my loneliness with a Shakespearian tragedy,
I’m trying to grasp each time
the soliloquy of
“To be or not to be.”
My sleeplessness wouldn’t rhyme.
3.
Marcus, from the Philippines,
living next door—on the right—
loves to have fish,
drink wine, and sing…
Rain or shine,
He sings the same old tune.
One day,
when he really let his hair down,
he said the song
was about a dejected fisherman,
who drowned in the sea
while swimming to the other side
to his loved one.
I, living next door to
Marcus—on the left—
keep him company, sometimes,
at a table with fish and wine,
and I accompany this “overcast”
Toumanian*** from the Philippines
Singing “Aghtamar”****
4.
My black friend, George,
speaks Armenian:
Hey, bastard,
he says,
why don’t you call?
And I can hear on the phone
these drab and syrupy
sounds of “D’le Yaman”****—
that, he says,
drive him crazy
like nothing else on earth.
Gevorg—
that’s his “kaif”***** armenian name—
knows some hundred
Armenian words.
He writes poems
mismatching those words together.
Yes he does, he writes—
dedicating everything he does
to William Saroyan…
5.
JUAN
Our street is
the compressed picture of America…
Juan,
who is tall,
slant-eyed, is just a
dignified Mexican.
Whenever we meet
he raises his hands,
and almost startled,
shouts out in Armenian:
Hi, my friend.
To my como estas
he smiles: bien, gracias
and offers to take a “sip.”
Juan can play the guitar—
when he takes the guitar in his hand
on Saturday evenings,
we, living next door,
surround him waiting
for him to play.
Chuan the Chinese
accompanies him with his guitar—
and yeah! the “band begins to play”
the gig of the block.
Juan who sings better
than famed Iglesias
sings not only Spanish
but “ours” as well.
After I asked him
if he knew the meaning of
“You’re fire, wearing fire;
How can I resist your fire?”
He knows for sure, now,
Sayat-Nova*** is of Spanish birth.
“You’re fire, wearing fire,”
sings Juan
in Spanish rhythm
while gorgeous Silvie, his wife,
begins to dance,
“wearing fire”.
(With firry jealousy for Princess Anne)5
and oh the way she dances!
Last week
Juan was entertaining us with an “honorable” dinner—
and when we were
so wonderfully tipsy
he announced in solemn silence
that he wanted
to be voted mayor of Los Angeles,
and asked for our support…
So we, stunned,
like after a cold shower,
left his house,
thinking:
What a perfect man will be going to pot…
Today—Saturday—
when Juan is waiting for us
with his guitar in his hand
to introduce his new song,
“Honorable Mayor”—
when Madam Silvie is upset
because the “new songs” of Sayat-Nova
are postponed
for indefinite time,
(The old dream of a one-night stand in Armenia)—
we, living next door,
fiercly polemizing,
are trying to understand
the temptation
of the Politics Called Whore—
in “Juan’s case”.
6.
Fed-up with the rabiz******* of the
Armenian TV
I shift the channel
to an American one…
and I “find myself quite by chance”
in a strange pose
in a new sex show.
Followed by an expert’s comment
according to which
“This kind of sex
may help a good deal
bolster the nuptial union.”
I shift to another
where mother and daughter thrash each other
in a very popular show—
to have the same male
for a lover
while the croud is howling in a trance.
So I turn back to our rabiz,
where a guy wants to give everything
for a girl’s ruby cheeks—
even die,
or burn in Hell
Yeah!
Ours is quite different!
(as the saying goes).
Los Angeles
this twinkling and dimming city
this abundant and scanty city
this ailing and blooming city
this hard and soft city-
that’s trembling,
starving inside,
messing up its conscience,
suffering from sleeplessness,
groaning in the flow of the heels
in the sizzle of the freeways,
missing humane voices-
that’s as cold as bright,
looking homeless in posh strangleholds,
that’s wise and silly at the same time,
junco and wino with innocent eyes,
a go-getter so lazy almost short of breath-
doesn’t recognize itself
cannot dig at all-
here it is lounged in the sun
exhausting and prospering
instantly!
this immense and exhausted city
that rapes with the same hands
conscience, dream, endeavor,
love and expectation,
body and soul,
credit and name-
with these very hands
it fondles and generates
superb images,
innocent tenderness,
compassionate smiles,
that mingle with the city
juxtaposing virgin and whore,
light and dark-
surrenders to it
for its colors-
juxtaposing this way
to make a city,
be the proprietor-
so brawny and miserable.
The city-
where the good and the bad have the same smile,
where rise and fall are in the same instance,
where your being or non-being is the quirk of others,
where love and hope and dream are gamblers,
where exertion is envy,
where freedom, like an invisible tyrant,
let you frolic and kick down your heels,
gamble and gambol-but in its cage only!
in its claws and jaws!
where life and death are sold by the same price,
where even dogs, cats, and mice
possess the high society of their own,
where each loss is meaningless,
and each meaning is lost,
where the stars walk down the streets
with pointless glittery smiles out from the movies,
where impossible is perfect,
perfect is impossible,
Where you cannot tell
boredom from delight,
where the beauty and the beast
lay in the same bed,
where all people
seem to be mislaid,
where time lags behind life,
life behind fairy-tales,
where the innocent and the guilty
whisper the same prayer,
where everything is raped,
trashed and confused,
where rise and fall
are mere shadows of your feet,
where the doors of mystery are wide open
and locked are the doors of harmony-
I don’t know why,
I don’t know how
I fell in love with someone,
someone
who used to stand on the street corner,
to do you for the filthy lucre,
who could be had by anyone,
by any way,
who used to be as innocent and chaste
as is fallen now on the outside,
who used to be as bashful
as is wanton now in her fervor,
who used to be as wholesome
as is nasty and double-dealing,
who used to be so loyal
as is betraying and fibbing now,
who used to be as caring
as cruel and indifferent,
who used to be as humble
as is capricious and wicked-
who seemed to embody the city,
or just its daughter.
And she used to leave me once in a while,
she used to deceive,
make a fool of me,
letting me down,
lying with others,
paying no heed to me,
then crying and begging on her bended knee
not to leave her flat,
just have mercy on her,
not hate her for that,
just stay with her awhile,
just believe
she’d change,
she’d be the one I want and dream of,
she’d go no more a-whoring,
she’d always tell the truth,
she’d be my faithful dog,
she’d slash her veins
if I did not believe her,
if I left her,
if I spit in her face,
and said goodbye forever…
Oh in this almighty city,
where it’s shameful to be ashamed,
where all the boundaries of common sense are wrecked,
where you don’t tell truth from untruth,
where guilty and innocent are just twins,
where saint and satan have just one body,
where love and hate are the selfsame thing,
where the crucified and the swindler are faithful friends,
where happiness is just a shell for solitude,
where each obsession
seems so natural!
Yea my baby loved me, giving herself up
like a virgin and bitch,
trembling over me,
fondling and stroking
till the doors of lethargy would open
and the gates of anguish would shut-
the gates of troubles and fears,
of dispersed contemplations,
of heart-breaking memories,
of outrageous voices,
that-like the homeless of this city-
had nothing else to hope for,
had nothing else to search for,
had nothing to pity,
had nothing to live for
that went along on the mere chance of chill and greedy mercy
in the chain of pointless days.
Once in this mad, mad city-
where miracles don’t happen by accident-
my little slut,
that fallen bitch,
like the one who was stoned,
I don’t know how,
saved me indeed,
saved me from this city
where, in crazy whirlpool,
my lucid resistance
was violated and demolished,
my own identity
that didn’t mean a thing
to anyone.
In this romantic city
burning with a sexual fever-
our modern Babylon,
Sodom and Gomorrah,
a boiling kettle
of legal and illegal newcomers,
where every passer-by
is friend and foe,
where jails are hospitable and warm
like old friends,
where everything is demonstrated
open and blatantly,
where life, love, lie,
faith and conscience are a big show,
where friends are loyal
only at a table of feast,
where nations love one another
as much as they hate,
where miscellaneous events
are harmonized
and crippled!
where animals and men
have the same rights,
where “sex” has become
honor and love,
where the good and the bad
wear the selfsame mask,
where vandalism
is a way of living-simple and genuine,
living is fear,
fear is living,
rape is just a pleasure-
where each second
life is a thin ice,
or bank-bank-bankruptcy,
or just loneliness,
or just an adventure-
where virginity is a blemish,
where morality
is becoming extinct,
where faith is money,
money is conscience,
conscience is blackmail-
where the human being
looks like anything!
where life, with some inexplicable whim,
rolls down at a crazy speed
to some baffling place
where there’s no end
and no beginning…
Well my wanton virgin
is with child now-
I wonder if it’s from me-
Oh yes she’s with child,
Waiting for a miracle to be born…
Translated from Armenian by Samvel Mkrtchyan
(
* Armenian instrument
** Armenian dance
*** Armenian poet
**** Armenian song
***** Cool
****** The women who loved Sayat-Nova
******* Country stile Armenian music
For Advertisements and Contact:
haik@molorak.com
Site designed and developed
by Haik Hrair (Yegyan)
Armenian Poetry Corner
(Click Here)