Poems are splinters, excavated by needles
Poems are scavenged tombs, never again sealed
Poems are wasps inside a fig
Poems are overestimating the ocean’s strength
Poems are oil leaks, a thousand feet deep
Poems are undetonated explosions
Poems are longshots.
Poems are coffee rings on a first draft
Poems are red-rimmed eyes and dusty, dandruff shoulders.
Poems are retired men skipping in slippers
Poems are lovers in various states of undress
Poems are life taking notes on the body
Poems are death by a thousand cuts
Poems are mobs carrying buckets of tar and feathers
Poems are warring tribes, flooding green hills
Poems are refugees seeking sanctuary
Poems are waking up.
Poems are frogs and lotus resting on a water lily
Poems are echoes of silence
Poems are the beat that drives us all.
Melineh Yemenidjian, a poet based in the United States, is a member of the Community Literacy Initiative (CLI) and serves on the International Armenian Literary Association (IALA) poetry committee aimed to support and celebrate emerging writers. She performs regularly at open mics and her poetry has appeared on public television and in Armenian Weekly, 99andcounting, VoiceCatcher, HyeBred Magazine, and multiple spotlights in h-pem, an Armenian literary journal. She is currently compiling a manuscript due in June 2025.
Featured image by Xuan Ngyuen on Unsplash.
