ANN/Armenian News – TLG – No April is Good April – Bedros Afeyan – 04/24/2023

The Literary Armenian News

No April is Good April

Never a year, never a tear spared dries away memory swells for the smell of genocide in spring

Turks past fat Sultan decaying imperial spectacle, now modern, young, hopeful, ruthless, slipping a little French lingo to class up their base coat of red barbarisms. A little German discipline into armies of flake warriors eager to abuse and haunt till death women children and old folks in desert marches

Ruthless to the point of perfection. Duplicitous by nature. insincere in every limit. Rabid. Driven. Permanent Menace to every neighbor, every friend, every civilized sphere.

And what might we bring? A carton of love. no conquest. No shove. A people yearn. A song book in the rain. crosses. processions, donkeys, pain.

Castles, towers, churches buckling under bullet holes and cannon fire by army recruits just for thrills and heartless traces of self-loathing.

Birds we call our own, call back, hark, hawk, horror, churn.

empty streets as desert hums.

Empty cribs as wombs, saintly drums.

Drones aimed at our foreheads dialed up by surname. Drones cheap and slender. Israeli, Turkish, garnished with bombs and hatred rain upon us as April bites and draws blood once again.

108 Aprils greet each Armenian with anguish louder than justice demands as our forgone refrain.

Bedros Afeyan

Pleasanton, CA

The homepage for The Literary Armenian News is at: groong.org/tlg/

Dr. Bedros Afeyan ([email protected]) is the editor of The Literary Armenian News (TLG), and will consider works not only of poetry, but also in the area of short fiction. Quality of language, excellence of translation, quality of song and images are all crucial to the aesthetic value of any work up for consideration.

Please note the following important guidelines:

Submissions to TLG must be sent to [email protected] and [email protected].
With your submission include a short bio about the author;
Submissions may not be anonymous, but at the author's request we may use their pen-name and/or withhold their Email address for purposes of privacy;
Submissions which have not yet been selected will continue to receive consideration for following issues;
In art, selection is necessarily a judgement call. As such, we will not argue why a particular submission was or was not selected;
There is no guarantee or promise that a submission will be published.

The Week in Review Podcasts
The Critical Corner
The Literary Armenian News
Review & Outlook
Probing the Photographic Record
Armenia House Museums
..and much more

Regards,

—

Armenian News Network / Armenian News

Los Angeles, CA / USA

Emil Lazarian

“I should like to see any power of the world destroy this race, this small tribe of unimportant people, whose wars have all been fought and lost, whose structures have crumbled, literature is unread, music is unheard, and prayers are no more answered. Go ahead, destroy Armenia . See if you can do it. Send them into the desert without bread or water. Burn their homes and churches. Then see if they will not laugh, sing and pray again. For when two of them meet anywhere in the world, see if they will not create a New Armenia.” - WS