Raffi Joe Wartanian (photo by Anastasia Italyanskaya)

October 18th, 2023

Californian Poets: Part VI

Raffi Joe Wartanian

Five Poems

Mama’s Dream

My mother told my grandmother and me
About a dream she had
Last night.

Her deceased father
Visited
And said,
“Have you forgotten me?”

“No, I didn’t,”
My mother protested,
In her dream.

My mother is silent.

“What happened next,” I ask.
“That’s it,” she says with a shrug.

Then my grandmother inquires,
“Did he ask about me?”

Previously published in Ararat Magazine

Manzanar

Cranes
Dovetail, ascend
To snow-capped improbabilities
Peering above expanses
Of shadows and secrets
And bygone communities

One
That thrived
And one
That survived.

The survivors,
They crossed an ocean
Swearing themselves to the pursuit
Of consumption cloaked in production.

They cultivated progeny
And launched enterprises;
Opened eyes and palettes,
Hearts and ears.

But the enemy struck
And waves of never again
And they’re among us
Obscured brothers for foes,
Mothers for martyrs

And with the stroke of a pen
The clench of a fist
The squint of an eye
The simultaneous rigidity and malleability of justice,

They were assembled before these peaks
To start anew
In one square mile.

In one square mile
They defecated and prayed
For the nightmare to end,
They felt the wind
Slice
Through the hollow point in their chests
Where resolve once resided.

They gazed at stars
In wonder and pondered
How captors could be lovers.

They pondered how the light and soul
Of a desert sky
Could bear witness to barbarity
And do nothing but
Mesmerize those able and willing
To look close enough

As people
As peaks
With purpose
In sweet
Repose for those who still believe
That man is not destined
To squeeze their brothers and beliefs
Into one square mile.

Orange Trees

Orange trees can grow in cities
And litter the streets with tantalizing, wormy juices
Leaves peppered with
Citric music bursting into forbidden songs

We dance here
For what else is left to do
Under the shadow of

Towering steeples

Once minarets

Once stones

Once earth

Once

That transports us back through centuries?

The Trumpets of Sevilla

I searched for brass
Triumphantly sounding from the Guadalquivir

I cycled over bridges and cobblestones
Seeking a glimpse
Into love’s divine flavors
Hidden inside the peel of every orange in this city

High, piercing, pleasing, inviting
The trumpets – or bugles were they? –
Blared and told stories
Of bullfights

lightning fingers

civilizations intertwined

On Calle Betis I zeroed in on them
And quickly crossed the Puente de Triana

And sure enough

There they were

Down by the bank
Five of them in a circle by the rio

Oblivious to me

And just yards away

Thundering drums
From a packed hall of men

Contemplating and celebrating and

Rehearsing rhythms

For a march
For fellowship
For life

For the sake of Sevilla’s citrus love
The trumpets found me

Every Day

Every day
I paint you more
I play you more
I fix you more
Because I love you,
Mi Amor

Every day
You inspire me
And sometimes you disgust me
Because I know
Within you rests
This incomprehensible, beautiful you
For which I have toiled for years to extract
Only to scratch the surface

Every day
I play your melody
And search for harmony
I find a way
To (try to) add beauty to you
And come closer
To your purest, simplest
Essence

But there are days
Of thankless toil
And utter devotion
Peering through bleary eyes
Fending off exquisite dreams
Only to be met by resistance
Devastating resistance

Until I return to you
Seconds, Hours, or Days
Later
Seconds, Hours, or Days
And I am wooed again
By your enchantment

Author Bio:

Raffi Joe Wartanian is a writer, musician, and educator who teaches writing at UCLA and serves as the inaugural Poet Laureate in the City of Glendale, California. His essays have appeared in The New York Times, Los Angeles Review of Books, University of Texas Press, Miami Herald, The Baltimore Sun, Lapham’s Quarterly, Outside Magazine, and elsewhere; and his poetry has appeared in The Los Angeles Press, No Dear Magazine, Armenian Poetry Project, Ararat Magazine, and beyond. Raffi has taught writing to veterans at the Manhattan VA, incarcerated writers at Rikers Island, youth in Armenia, and undergraduates at Columbia University, where he earned an MFA in Writing. He is the recipient of grants and fellowships from The Fulbright Program, Eurasia Partnership Foundation, and Humanity in Action. As a musician, Raffi has released two albums of original compositions: Critical Distance (2019) and Pushkin Street (2013).