Alan Semerdjian
I. UNTITLED
Genocide is the bomb the angles sleep in,
The ape of cranium
The pensive shape.
Genocide is repose, is topography
is acrylic, doesn’t wash away.
Genocide riffs with feathers,
attacks the canvas
like a bird,
like
a
c
l
a
w
b
i
r
d,
like a siren, is permanent, is
evidence
of faith, intention, and proud.
Genocide opens mouths.
Genocide closes
mouths.
Genocide is [the bomb,] the angel sleeping,
the gestures
the natives
have taken,
the quiet forgetting, and
what’s left inside
when the forgetting
won’t forget.
II. FRANZ LISZT
Grandfather’s in the painting
on the wall, the one with the
boxes and rectangles and
perspectives of face; he’s on
a balcony, on a profile, on
the phone, and his eyes are on
fire, blue fire; and his notes
are about passages; and he’s
at rest. He is fractured, and
distinguished; he’s cracking up
but holding it in; his eyebrows
form an arch, his temples a spire;
he is a church on a mountain
in a country, several thousand
countries, miles away. He is
regrouping, his night evening;
he has found a place, a split-
level home again in the frames,
the late-inning frames, on strike.
III. HOPE
“Father, what’s that?”
“What’s that, child?”
“In the fog, in the ocean, in the
blue.”
“Is that what you see my child?”
“Yes.
I want to know what it is.”
“I want to know what you think about it.”
“It’s beautiful, father.”
“It is, my son. It’s your home.”
“But we live here father. We live far.”
“It’s not that kind of home. It’s another kind. The kind you make up.”
“You make up a home, father?”
“Yes, son. You make it up.”
“And where does a made up home go?”
“You put it on a mountain, in your head, you put it in a dream.”
“You put it in a dream, father?”
“Yes. In a dream, in the fog, in the ocean, in the blue.”