Trafika Europe 4 - Armenian Rhapsody

Abu Kasem’s Slippers

when autumn comes I put on Abu Kasem’s slippers and I stamp with my black blood I stamp on the grape berries on the pitch darkness in which a painter is pouring out lilies and in his autumn, in his bitter flesh I stamp – wake up you madman and swallow the colours stretch your bones, sanctify your gaze and come with me to mourn the cranes

under these aerials with which we catch birds under these domes in which we burn mice under these airplanes with which we catch clouds –

it’s autumn and in autumn I put on Abu Kasem’s slippers I wear them as if they were two bottles of champaigne two birds on my legs I listen to them and they are empty like two tin ears in which bells are ringing but what sort of a dahlia would cry inside a dahlia and what sort of an oak would collapse into its own body? Abu Kasem, there’s no one here with me to mourn for the cranes, just a stone hand falling down in water.

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