on love

I've looked at love from both sides now
From give and take, and still somehow
It's love's illusions I recall
I really don't know love at all
                                        ~ Joni Mitchell

does anyone really know
what love really is?
many have tried to 
explain what is...
    unexplainable

poets and lyricists 
novelists, screenwriters
for the history of mankind
have tried and tried again
    all succeed in part and
    all have failed in the whole 

love evolves with age
it is personal 
it is part genetic 
and for certainly sure
forged by experience

it is everlasting 
and neverlasting
cynically clouded
or forever pending
it is storybookish
or unrequited, coveted 
carnal, platonic, filial
supportive, sarcastic
uplifting or berating
painful and healing
everything and nothing
the full gradient in between
it is none of the above
and all at the same time
    in the same person
    the same couple

in love,
we can be daring
stupid, cunning, dashing,
sly, reserved, timid, or
just our awkward selves 

it makes our lives
or ruins our days
it is liberating

love just is...

 

 

 

throwback winter day

it was another time
another time when we
all came of age 
a time of inflection
the world about to 
get much smaller
more populated
more hectic and
    just more...

it was the last time
when there was no grid
to wish we were off of.
the winters were bleaker
with darker nights and 
rawer days in that city
that seemed grim grittier
than it probably was

today was a day like
some of those days
i am recalling
and actually...
    miss
  

mining a vein of turquoise

i stumbled upon a piece 
of turquoise set in gold, 
the coppery kind,
mostly found near where
it was all crystalized

i admired the beauty of the
simple elegant presentation
and my guide, algor, noticed 
my mesermered fascination
and rhythmically guided me 
towards more without...
    missing a beat

these are not the finest pieces
like from a high end place 
from some famous jeweler
but, instead, from a 
much more humble craftsman
on some backstreet 
old world little storefront
in the bustle of the everyday
of common folks

i was in shops tourist never see
to a soundtrack i'll never hear again
but on those small streets 
in that  humble neighborhood
of a grand city i've never been 
and finding a few precious moments... 
    of contentment

while slowly sipping...

we never met, i never read you, though
i wrote what you wrote, after you died...
we never met, should we have?
there is a memory of you before the
very aroma wafted your words to my ears

in a small frothed cup of your sounds
i sipped your words sung by your sister
accompanied by your nephew and cousin
that plunged us all slowly into the murky
brown sweetly bitter depths of rebirth
able to see clearly but unable to tell anyone... 

being mused

having a muse
not anything i thought
i would ever have
i would ever need 
or ever really wanted

yet, here she is 
improbable and wondrous
passively active
amused and bemused
floating above it all
and in the thick of it
leaving me alone
whilst forever in my head
succeeding at making
creativity flow
with neither
plan nor agenda
leaving me
in short... inspired

actively arresting

you, i thought,
musingly used one 
of them there
oxidental dichotomous 
paradoxical thingys
when you told me 
you were going to 
'actively rest'

i was passively excited
there was a poem in this
until... it was 
ambiguously clear
it is a very real thing

all leaving me
happily dejected
stupidly smart
vigorously deflated

leaving no option
but to actively sleep
if that is a thing...

the mardin of my mind

why mardin
why not some other place
someplace more
i dunno, more,
armenian?

it is in my mind
this ancient syriac,
old assyrian town,
where we might 
have once met
in a shared dream

this mardin of my mind
not my city, not yours
but who remembers
all our incarnations?

maybe it's just 
that song that
one lovely song 
a simple love song
a melody from the soul
and lyrics profound,
well, just two 
disjoint lines

she appeared as a moon...
and took my mind away

with a chanted counterpoint
echoing from an old stone
church in the mardin 
of my mind

he gave his only
begotten daughter...

december 2025
best read, at least once, listening to:  dalal oy dalal

 

 

stark reflection

we need a dawning
of some kind
the beatitudinal kind
with a new category

a new age for 
an old world mired
in a modern chaos
of way too many
of us...

overwhelmed with
diversions and 
led like chattel 
by algorithms

too much information
too much faith
and way too much light
all of the wrong kind 

that drive home

that sunday, long ago 
we were young and hopeful
we were friends, good friends 
on that edge, that border,
that wonderous crazy edge
of you know...

we were with a group
driving home
driving home from our
weekend of armenian
education and music
and dancing

six of us driving home
we were in the back seat
you in the middle and
i by the window

who else was in the car
it mattered not then
it matters less now
what mattered was you
and me sitting next to you
talking on that beautiful 
long drive home 

we talked about...
whatever we talked about
we talked and enjoyed
and tired, we fell asleep
drifted off...

i was asleep, blissful
until i felt you lean into me
your head on my shoulder
and then... i was 
blissfully awake

i felt special
the smell of you, your hair
your gentle breathing
for an hour

for that hour the world
my place in that world
was perfect
and all right and good
on that drive home

alternative explanations

two words on a white board
two words in black, all caps, 
underlined in emphasis 
and... nada, zip, bupkis, zilch
nothing underneath
    kinda existential, sophomoric,
    maybe even philosophical

ok, i might understand that
there just were no alternatives 
but...
    what was the question?
    what was the explanation for
    which there were no alternatives?
    was it deeper than deep?
    all about life, love, god, souls, 
    and what happens in death?
    consciousness and being? 
    hope and hopelessness?
    or something more mundane?

maybe, just maybe, 
it was just a joke
a clever academic joke
to taunt and tease with an
unanswerable questions
    the way that can be named
    or explained, is not the true way
    and there are...
    no alternatives 

этюд два

bundled, scarf swaddled,
gloved and coated heavy
trekking in the dark dawn
of these shorter days...
the crunch of snow and
ice underfoot the frost 
of breath in iced air

embracing a frozen poetic
yuri andreievichy kinda day
casting you as my reluctant
larrisa fyordorovna