ANGELA’S MORTAR by Bedros Afeyan

Fisherman, a photo by M R Hasan on Flickr.

Urge to create, to merge and purge
Madness, Fever rendered, heartbeat
Shorn, breath a’tremor, lunging

Emptiness meets mid-progress

Disturb chaos, chaotically kneaded
Create a lighthouse, spread thin in rows

Wondering words diffuse in an endless field
Leaf trails seeped in sorrow, blind, stunned stares
Loneliness alley pulped, swallowed

Famished thirst, sprinkle this cracking dryness
With wet, pulsing words
Let order transmute distant murmurs

For you to crave and rave in chaotic dreams
The next salvo in invisible love’s mortar

Bedros Afeyan
Pleasanton, CA
8-11-2009

EXILE by Ana Arzoumanian

Anna, a photo by .unsuono. on Flickr.

And the other blood
which does not — run,
which smells of acid
of women
whose blood does not — run.
The suture of their legs,
Its sharp stiffness, in morsels
mutilated invisible on the sand,
on the sand to the sea,
to the sea that swallows ships;
on the sand of exile dissolving
drinking jars with moles,
and the air stays overcast, concave,
shovelfuls to inhale, pushing
dragging shabby dresses
of women
whose blood
does not — run.