Arpi Voskanyan / Death of the Author

Become an Architect

It is already three days that I am waking up ashamed and happy,

like a married woman,

who in her dream has fallen in love with a man

and thinks about him all day

and does not know how to look at her husband

whom she loves and respects

and has no intention of leaving...

From where did these new passionate dreams come and cling to me?

the buildings, the buildings, the buildings,

rising up and spreading out,

cylinders, cones, cubes,

buildings: hanging from the clouds like flowers,

buildings: like trees, animals, people,

endless glass, metal, concrete, stone, wood and unknown materials...

I dismiss my thoughts about buildings,

and streets emerge in front of my eyes,

and I see entire cities and my heart amorously throbs,

a crazy, stupid, immature fool...

I google "Become an architect" afraid and embarrassed,

like I would google an unfamiliar man's name,

with whom I have suddenly, completely mindlessly and randomly 

fallen in love with...

While the page has not yet opened, I quickly close it;

Architect? Who, me? I am no builder.

What I feel a calling towards is collapsing my life...

 

Blown Away by the Wind

I, like a sailboat,

a flaming sailboat,

kindled by the wind,

am not losing hope.

The wind is distancing me and distancing me from the shore,

from which I departed during a starless night,

and it is not allowing me to approach other shores,

where I could take respite.

The wind is pushing me to the open ocean–

towards the desert waters,

so that I helplessly burn and smoke

like a beautiful decoration on the ocean's formidable breast.

There is no salvation from this absurd position...

I say, I will think about it tomorrow, a

nd tomorrow I repeat myself, and the next day...

And my hope is that in the end

the fire and water will meet. 

(2015)

Translated by Knar Hovakimyan

Death of the Author

My most recent love is a "scriptor"

and in forming an opinion on a writer

he looks at the reactions of others

to avoid making mistakes with his own.

Like all of his colleagues,

he likes big writers,

since in praising them

he is less likely to make a mistake.

In order to be worth his praise,

a writer must also be dead,

since about the dead,

it is acceptable to say

either something good or nothing at all,

and an exalting speech could also

be considered a sorrowful eulogy.

The dead writer is also convenient

in that he will not sprout from underground

and will not burden your soul's delicate strings

with all the weight

of his dusty and shaking body,

requesting that you prove your word with action:

give him homage with food and drink

or a 500 dram loan.

Like his colleagues, deep within his soul,

my love hates writers,

and for him, the big dead writers

are just a way to demonstrate

the smallness of the living ones.

He writes articles

reviews, editorials,

bestowing glory posthumously

on the big dead writers

with his breast defending their writing, 

which no one has either

the courage or desire to attack.

Concerning women,

not one of that gender's representatives

has managed to be in his view;

all of the great writers are men –

greatness is generally not fit for a woman

and death does not become her.

Yet I, leaving work and responsibilities behind, 

fry verse for him day and night,

although I know that he will not notice me that way

since I am still a woman and I do not have the nobel.

The road to his heart

passes through the Pantheon.

(Anterudus 2006)

Stay Well, My Ponchik

I close my eyes, I open my eyes...

I have never said that I love you...

In the past I sometimes thought,

That you were only an emergency savior

At times of hunger pangs

Or just a medicine curing sudden sadness.

And only now,

On the 21st day of this torturous diet,

When I have lived without you for this long,

I am beginning to feel the yearning for you.

I now, just now understood,

That you are the most delicious of all of the world's pastries –

They are nothing in the face of your brilliant simplicity,

Multilayered, meringue-topped and glazed cakes,

Whose culinary preparation

Require acrobatic skills,

Many magic tricks...

You are more than a pastry,

You are not a pastry at heart,

You are a person at heart,

Within you there is nothing superfluous,

Just a body and soul.

On the outside, unsightly and primitive,

Inside, regal and majestic.

But you are so similar to me,

And I have become so similar to you...

That sometimes it seems that I am you...

I just now, just now realized,

That I have you to thank for moving around so heavily

And that I have become this lazy,

That my reflection in the mirror does not please me.

And it does not please me.

I close my eyes, I open my eyes...

I know, I must stop thinking about you,

And pay no attention when I see you

And when the occasion arises, stay at least a meter away.

But when I close my eyes,

In the final rays of light I see your shape,

My half-open lips stretch towards you

my teeth penetrate your sunburnt skin,

anointed with sweet-smelling oil,

On top, the traces of sweet powder...

I am being torn apart by my longing for you

And I remember your white,

Sweet belly, like mother's milk...

I devour you with longing's insatiable mouth

And I become you.

I open my eyes...

(2014)


Translated by Knar Hovakimyan

"Don't  go empty-handed" (e-book, 2015)