THE ARMENIAN ALPHABET
Alan Semerdjian, In the Architecture of Bone, Genpop Books, 2009
for Mesrop Mashtots
1. Font
It is not simple mathematics
and symbols, not just
characters on a page. Language
is an almanac.
My alphabet is a crew of dolphins,
a verdict of slanted joshua trees
in transmission,
in ocular mistrust of neighbor,
from the bellies of which spark sharp green fragments
and cadaverous song.
My alphabet is a tank of definitions
foliating like apricot leaves.
It haunts the hinting of its crescents,
the spaces that ellipse themselves
to ceiling of planetarium
to the nebulous of memory,
brazened photographs’ tapestry.
My grandfather taught me how to swim
with onions on his tongue.
I pried the index of his fingers free
to inked palms and shells of thumbs.
I was bent inside my mother
until they cut her open.
Someone told me four blind mice
lay down in somersaults across my name.
They each had a story to tell
about my mutation.
2. Forensic Knot Analysis
Then, they taught me how to tie my shoes,
this band of migrant characters:
Monkey’s Fist, Sheetbend
Round Turn, Turk’s Head,
Prussick, Diamond
Rodi, Half-hitch.
One is a snake charmed in the grass.
One is a kneeling buddha,
one, directions for angels, and
another, a rabbi lost in Williamsburg.
One is the captain of the
Harvard crew team.
One, a plowing tool.
There are llamas and cranes,
two swans on a lake,
kangaroos with celtic staffs—
workbooks of people—in my alphabet.
They parade around the incensed corners
of my life freezing in tangled poses when I dare to look.
A musketeer’s ostrich plume hat—
tricorne cocked,
pomegranate seeds, halva manifested,
all a turn of the lip around the word
asvadtzim, my god. Jigsaw minded composition,
theater of angles, the soft script of candle and flame
alive in a night about to breeze,
alone on a page of resurrections,
you are the desert wizard in a sandstorm
conducting last dances of secret evening
gatherings of ink.
Songwriter, poet, and educator Alan Semerdjian has been making and performing music in the NYC/Long Island area and beyond since 1990. His entire annotated musical catalog will be available exclusively here on bandcamp by 2023.
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