April 24, 2023

No April is Good April

Never a year, never a tear spared dries away memory swells for the smell of genocide in spring

Turks past fat Sultan decaying imperial spectacle, now modern, young, hopeful, ruthless, slipping a little French lingo to class up their base coat of red barbarisms. A little German discipline into armies of flake warriors eager to abuse and haunt till death women children and old folks in desert marches

Ruthless to the point of perfection. Duplicitous by nature. insincere in every limit. Rabid. Driven. Permanent Menace to every neighbor, every friend, every civilized sphere.

And what might we bring? A carton of love. no conquest. No shove. A people yearn. A song book in the rain. crosses. processions, donkeys, pain.

Castles, towers, churches buckling under bullet holes and cannon fire by army recruits just for thrills and heartless traces of self-loathing.

Birds we call our own, call back, hark, hawk, horror, churn.

empty streets as desert hums.

Empty cribs as wombs, saintly drums.

Drones aimed at our foreheads dialed up by surname. Drones cheap and slender. Israeli, Turkish, garnished with bombs and hatred rain upon us as April bites and draws blood once again.

108 Aprils greet each Armenian with anguish louder than justice demands as our forgone refrain.

Bedros Afeyan

Pleasanton, CA

04-24-2023

Dr. Bedros Afeyan is a theoretical physicist who works and lives in the Bay Area with his wife Marine. He writes in Armenian and in English, and also paints and sculpts. He is the current editor of The Literary Groong.