June 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.
Back of the Throat
Unable to write
I stare at the empty page:
abandoning words
I throw the alphabet into the sea:
the waves choked
with alternate endings.
Turning away from language,
I tear photographs
from magazines,
preferring inanimate objects
to portraits of film
stars & politicians.
Tiring of rampant consumerism
& the cult of personality,
I switch to landscapes
& architectural drawings,
coveting the blank face
of winter scenes & concrete bunkers.
Later, I abandon photo realism
drawing primitive figures
with swollen breasts & giant phalluses
on the side of mountains,
ignoring geometry & rules of perspective
opting for short lines & upholstered layers:
an abbreviation or synthesis
like a small jolt of memory, color,
& unformed flirtatious syllables
lodged in the back of the throat.
Note: This poem appeared in a different form under the title “Collage” in The Comstock Review, 2014. I have since extensively revised the poem and changed the title to reflect those revisions.
© 2017 Michael Minassian
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