A MAN IS DOWN
There is a rhythm
to early morning rain,
the empty hours, when
you lie awake with
nothing else to do
but listen to its music.
Sometimes a jazz riff, excited,
a downpour of good cheer,
and other times, like tonight, slow,
lugubrious, a dirge with its coded
message tapped on the roof, the panes
of the bedroom window….
a man is down….
and now the wind rises from the east,
a moan through the leafless maples, and
you wonder, could it have come this far,
across an entire ocean?
a wife is keening…
a child is squalling…
I must grieve with them, I must
mourn him and all like him who
choose to rise against the oppressor
a man is down….
and others will rise in his stead,
the rain, the wind, they tell me so.
ARANEUS DIADEMATUS
Out of thin air, backlighted
by the orange harvest moon,
the alchemy of spinnerets,
protein into silk, gossamer
suspended between eave and gutter
at the whim of a puff of wind
or the weight of raindrops
or a sparrow’s hunger.
In the morning, droplets of dew
hung by the night mist diademed
the filaments, lustered by low
shafts of sunrise, elegance
to rob the breath. Each night
I prayed for its survival. Like
matins and vespers added
to a diurnal ritual, a treasure
of communion, of serenity,
nothing asked in return. Seven
days it defied wind, rain
and predator, a damselfly
or two sustenance enough,
and just as it had appeared
out of thin air, of a sudden
it was gone – whisked
on the stealthy wings
of the first light frost.
THE FLOWER AND THE CANDLE
Sometimes in dreams, sometimes
in hazy reverie, in those feeling
adrift spaces they appear side by side
like offerings to appease the dark gods
of despair, as buffers against the siren call
of isolation, sentinels against the flight
of the spirit, the dread of mortality. The vase
of ranunculus, tight-lapped petals
pigmented yellow-orange, a medley of
all the sunrises and sunsets since earth-time
began. And the candle, pomegranate
red, its tenuous flame dancing in rhythms
at the whimsy of each puff of air, waxen
blood the melt of its own heat, the ebb
of its own life dripping, pausing, yet
inexorable. The flower always,
always bending toward the light,
the warmth, the promise of life.
Sometimes, the candle flickers out,
a mean incubus haunts the air,
ghouls of the dark side fill the void.
I reach out to relight it, the flame dances again.
Or the flower wilts, petals drop one
by one, a shedding of yellow tears,
a stalk sucked dry of life’s juices.
I give it water and its thirst is quenched.
When the day comes that I move on,
it will pass to others. The candle will
be kept aflame, the flower will have water
until the day all our suns finally flare out,
a circle completed, perfectly round.
RITUALS
Another dawn on the front stoop
awaiting the ribbon of blue like
no other blue. In the east, Mars and
Venus suspended in indigo. Anticipating
the mockingbird’s symphony,
trilling, warbling long fugues
ushering in the day on cue.
Waiting
with a cup of coffee and a cigarette
for the morning paper.
And waiting
for Mr. Bojangles in his baggy pants
and worn out shoes, only he doesn’t
dance…he shuffles, shoulders
drooped, hands clenched behind
hunched back, beaky nose dead ahead,
a starved bird scenting for grubs. Eyelids
half-shuttered against despair, a life
of circles folding back on themselves.
Waiting months on end
for a glimmer. And one morning
by God he cocked a wild left eye at me,
his daring uncaged just this once.
OLD MAN
Hunched on his stoop
he whittles at the hours,
strokes long, well-cadenced.
Time slows, the Carolina sun
hangs high spewing noonday heat.
A fly buzzes with menace,
pauses its raid to settle on the brim
of his floppy plantation hat.
A crusty hand rises, a perfunctory
swat and back to business.
Concentration deepens
facial grooves, furrows
etched by the silver blade
of a prejudice far older than he.
He doesn’t speak, his eyes
lidded, cast down.
Shavings of brown bark-skin
pirouette to ground, mounding
curlicued at his feet crusted
black with bottom land mud.
The honed stick transforms –
bone white, smooth as a sliver
of fine African mahogany.
McLellanville, SC
Krikor N. Der Hohannesian: “My poetry has been thrice nominated for a Pushcart Prize and has appeared in many literary journals including The Evansville Review, The South Carolina Review, Atlanta Review, Comstock Review, Louisiana Literature, Connecticut Review and Natural Bridge. My first chapbook, “Ghosts and Whispers” (Finishing Line Press, 2010) was a finalist for the Mass Book Awards, which also selected it as a “must read” in their 2011 poetry category. A second chapbook, “Refuge in the Shadows”, was released in June, 2013 (Cervena Barva Press).”