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Monday, January 25, 2016

THE SUNDAY POET: Krikor Der Hohannesian

Krikor Der Hohannesian






Krikor Der Hohannesian lives in Medford, MA. His poems have been thrice-nominated for a Pushcart prize and have appeared in many literary journals including The Evansville Review, The South Carolina Review, Atlanta Review, Louisiana Literature, Connecticut Review, Natural Bridge and Comstock Review. He is the author of two chapbooks,“Ghosts and Whispers” (Finishing Line Press, 2010) and “Refuge in the Shadows” (Cervena Barva Press, 2013). “Ghosts and Whispers” was a finalist for the Mass Book awards poetry category in 2011.






                                                               


THE FLOWER AND THE CANDLE

Sometimes in dreams, sometimes
in hazy reverie, in those feeling
adrift spaces they appear side by side
like offerings to appease the dark gods
of despair, as buffers against the siren call
of isolation, sentinels against the flight
of the spirit, the dread of mortality. The vase
of runnunculus, tight-lapped petals
pigmented yellow-orange, a medley of
all the sunrises and sunsets since earth-time
began. And the candle, pomegranate
red, its tenuous flame dancing in rhythms
at the whimsy of each puff of air, waxen
blood the melt of its own heat, the ebb
of its own life dripping, pausing, yet
inexorable. The flower always,
always bending toward the light,
the warmth, the promise of life. 

Sometimes, the candle flickers out,
a mean incubus haunts the air,
ghouls of the dark side fill the void.

      I reach out to relight it, the flame dances again.

Or the flower wilts, petals drop one
by one, a shedding of yellow tears,
a stalk sucked dry of life’s juices.

      I give it water and its thirst is quenched.

When the day comes that I move on,
it will pass to others. The candle will
be kept aflame, the flower will have water
until the day all our suns finally flare out,
a circle completed, perfectly round.
     


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