Civilized Man
by Shant Norashkharian
I hear the walk of silent men
Orange shadows in sinking sun
Faces as if hit by not one
But a thousand puzzles undone
Procession of thousand souls
Marching, dancing to ancient sounds
Long dead and gone
Long dead and gone
O the music's
Long dead and gone
"What said the earth
We've forgotten"
Murmured the rain
Murmured the rain
On the dead leaves
Of all the trees
That were broken
Like old soldiers
With wounds open
What said heaven
We've forgotten
Rivers, mountains
Are now the slums
of birds and cubs
Alas, Alas
Civilized man
Thousands of years
Of sweat and blood
Billions of births
And deaths and wars
Stars turning
Atoms fusing
What shall we say
If we are asked
What shall we say
Is the result
Alas, Alas
Civilized man
What shall we say
If we are asked?
I hear the sound of nightingales
Which have no place to rest and nest
"Shame!" Nature roars
"Bathe it with blood
The heart that lives
In dark and mud
Build it with stone
The wall of woe
To hold the tears
Of tomorrow
It's not yet dawn
For wine and joy
It's not yet dawn
Let mothers mourn
Let mothers mourn!"
Alas, Alas
The seeds will die
In no-man's- land
In cold sunshine
In barren soil
A newborn life
Will not survive
Alas, Alas
Civilized man
What shall we say
If we are asked?
MIGHTY CAESAR
By Shant Norashkharian
"Hail Caesar!" said
The lone madman,
"For all this time
I thought you were
My emperor
And my hangman!"
"Hail Caesar!" said
The lone madman,
Who spent his days
In his own jails:
"In each corner
Where your army
Spread your reign
Of fatuity
Now the fools gloat
In ecstasy
And the wise rot
In agony
And every word
Announced by saints
Is soon declared
A heresy!
Mighty Caesar
O emperor
So arrogant
Of the First World!
At last I know
It was not you who sentenced me
My enemy
Is within me
I am the judge and the jury
I'm the victim who has to see
A way out of his own fury
I'm the convict who has to pay
For all the pain and injury
Mighty Caesar!
At last I know
That your power
Is really not of your army
But your image
Of false glory
That mind's garbage
Sounds like wisdom
When all lips sing
In harmony
And all mouths foam
With irony!
Like beasts they roam
Mighty Caesar
The streets of Rome
Hunting to kill
The thinking men
The feeling men
Like beasts they roam
To bring their last
To beg before
Your mighty throne
The last of those
Who still wonder
How could they fight
Nothingness with
undeclared war!
But the horror
The real horror
Mighty Caesar
Is not the war
But the burial of a live soul
Long before death has played its role
When in vacuum I moved my fists
And my poems
Fell like dead rocks on their deaf ears
When I pondered and I questioned
The universe and its millions of mysteries
When I refused to sing and dance
With their own rhythms and melodies
'Madman' they said
'Leave now our ship
This place is full of flesh and bones
We have no use for heavy words'
Tell me, Caesar!
If you compress all living cells
And the trillions of molecules
Into just one tiny capsule
In your own palm
If finally you are master
Of everything that breathes and walks
Will you then claim
Your victory
To a kingdom
Of dead matter?"
And the madman
Knowing that now with his own words
He sealed the fate of his own death
Carried gently his tired body
Into the jails that he had built
To keep the beasts out and away
And with the face of a convict
Who knew the pain of his verdict
Behind locked doors he now could hear
The sound of mobs and their loud kicks:
"Hang the madman,
Hang the madman,
Mighty Caesar!"
"For the gods know with certainty"
The madman thought
"The boundaries of human minds
That our choices are as many
As those of flies trapped in locked jars
That happiness is the moment
When all the dreams and illusions
Bursting in skies like firecrackers
Meet death at earth's cold horizons"
"Mighty Caesar!"
The madman cried:
"You'll bury me
But not my songs
You'll break my neck
But not my swords
So hear you all
To my last words:
We could be gods
If we allowed
Each living thing
To live and die
In dignity"
A Prayer
By Shant Norashkharian
That you may bless
And acknowledge
The first steps of the infant
Who crawled so long only to walk
That in disguise
You may reveal your rare presence
Like a secret shared by lovers
Who have just met
That you may force
Creation
Into channels built with patience
And fortitude
In hundred years of solitude
That I may wet my feet again
In the waters of Lebanon
As the gentle heat of its sun
Permeates deep in my shoulders
That my homeland would never weep
Or bleed with hate so old and deep
That I may leave these foreign shores
To patch the wounds and open doors
That my tired brain may now capture
The sense of its painful rapture
That your thunder may never end
When million lips thirst for raindrops
And your wise men may never bend
Under the whips of lynching mobs
That your prophets may at last learn
To live without self-destruction
And above all that we may earn
A step toward your salvation
Arcadia, CA
* * *
Copyright 1989 by Shant Norashkharian
Feedback/Comments: The email address of Shant Norashkharian is:
MASSISSAR@AOL.COM
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