You’ll be alone again with your stained canvas
Studio walls receding, madness in full gallop
Your easel creaks with honking horns, Whooping Cranes
Half-drunk tubes, steep step fallen, hairy brushed lagoons
Cezanne could appear through pirouetted pears, pitied peaches
Matisse’s true lips, breasts, bottoms smiling almost colorless
Or Picasso to rearrange burning eyes and needles, crimes, cradles
So only Picasso remains — in all female receptacles
And you return to the canvas, exhausted
Mother and sister whispering in your head
Horse’s hooves, Turkish death march spring dance
Silence, pause, silence, breath
When even paint washes lines and traces
In smooth jolt, rapid caress, ejaculate
The canvas turns to overcoat, walks
Towards the NY night, into spittoons,
Museums, a loud curse abandoned
The virgin canvas bought from the provinces
Innocent, unassuming, bewildered
Deflected, diasporic renegade
The virgin canvas begs to forget
The virgin Mary and her son blast open
The past in lake Van, a chapel in ointments
Pigments, streaked scratches, eyes and hands
Chapel for cattle, for target practice, erased
Young Turkish recruits reclaiming their heritage
Vosdanig hangs himself to a pin on the wall
To carry the weight of witness, to see saints
Art and Armenia in endless stone serenade.
Bedros Afeyan
7-4-2011
Pleasanton, CA
** aka Archile Gorky
