December 2017
After teaching at a college in South Florida for thirty years, I retired, and my wife and I have traveled around the country, and moved twice in the past two years. Now that we are settled, we are looking forward to exploring our new city and making new friends. Some of my poems have appeared recently in such journals as The Broken Plate, The Comstock Review, Exit 7, The Lake, and Third Wednesday. Amsterdam Press published a chapbook of my poems entitled The Arboriculturist in 2010. Check out my author's page on Facebook or go to my blog at http://www.michaelminassian.com.
About the poem: By the time this poem was published in 1976, I had already published about a dozen poems. But this was an important milestone for me, the first time I had an appearance in Ararat Magazine, an Armenian-American publication devoted to Armenian art, literature, and culture. I had met the Editor, David Kherdian, about 5 years earlier while I was traveling in California. His support, generosity, and advice to a young aspiring poet was invaluable, and I am still grateful to him. The poem was inspired by my grandparents and others of their generation who overcame enormous obstacles on their path to adapting to a new life in America.
About the photograph: Taken sometime around 1976-77; there I am treed by a pack of adoring fans.
About the photograph: Taken sometime around 1976-77; there I am treed by a pack of adoring fans.
BROKEN PROMISES
Let me take you
to a stone altar
somewhere north of
Arabia,
on the road
to Holy Russia,
we stop to
loot & plunder
the sands of dry
river beds.
Let me bring you
dark delights
in palaces of pleasure
which disappear
each dawn
with the cracking sun.
Let me take you
to black tents
fluttering
in the desert wind,
to hard rides
on camels –
changing horses
on the plains
of Asia Minor,
arriving finally
at the base
of Mt. Ararat
to old men
selling splinters
of wood,
pieces of the Ark.
Let me take you
where the ancient grasses
keep their own secrets:
to the lakes & seas
of Armenia
& tell you tales
of massacres
while we eat
purple grapes
in the foothills.
Let me sing you songs
of love & freedom,
of men who escaped
across the ocean,
to wind up
the lonely dead
in Boston & Manhattan,
who never forgot
the broken promises
or the words
that brought them there.
Let me take you
to streets
paved of gold
on the other side
of rainbows –
to tattoos
in the sky
where the wind
speaks in broken
English.
© 2017 Michael Minassian
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