Tag: Zakarian

Because we need more
Chinese helicopters
to fight famine in Ethiopia
and Italian submarines
for the Western Sahara.
Don’t ask how or why
because they’ll make a movie about it
and when they make a movie
then it’s true.

And who needs jobs?
Everything has been premanufactured
prepackaged and shipped in.
Now we create stories about
things we used to make
and purchase things,
unpack and trash
to justify our sense of touch
and perhaps possession
Because very soon happiness
will be assembled
and shipped in aluminum cans.
And it will be rechargeable
and very “green.”

You talk
I listen
then I nod
I draw a line on a piece of paper
You spill the coffee

I drop the needles on the record
It’s Bach … it’s black … it’s plastic
But it’s perfect
D minor doesn’t sooth your mood
You are an ‘A’ flat with a suspended seventh
laid over burnt sienna dipped in cobalt blue

I crash-land to negotiate
and offer numbers: 2 … 4 … 8 …
But you withdraw into your prime
Rebel with: 9 … and 47

We’re disconnected
Line’s dead

Confused we look for rust
The gold was real
but the finger chose to leave the ring
The ash has smoldered the best of memories
Sinks drained the rest

What’s left of our tastefully composed duet
diminished into a solo tennis game
Go hit the wall
We’re interrupted.

Some days you won’t brush
your teeth going to bed
those are the crazy days
because we are preoccupied
brushing off each other

And some days
I won’t take the trash out
you’ll come home
and find me [assed out
on the couch
Those are the busy days

Some days I’ll walk out
onto the balcony
stare at Van Gogh’s bright sky
and ask      What now?
You’ll sneak behind me
wrap your arms around my
docile shoulders
We’ll stand here
listen to the silence of the moon
Those are the happy days