If your country is rocky and droughty,
write a poem to live softly.
Our president who, to my mind, is a philologist,
writes poems of loneliness and sadness in the back of contracts
and so he writes of dismissal in the minutes of despair…
And the Opposition calls rhymed names,
and we shout keeping the melody.
The Minister of Defense dedicates songs to the war
so that the heart of rabid neighbor could soften
and the cannonball could fall without noise.
The Central Bank Chairman reads a verse about Crisis,
and the journalist writes quatrain about the last accidents
and self-murderers particularly
who used to leave poems in their pockets.
Squatters in the open sky
dedicate acrostic to the chill and famine…
When life becomes too difficult
divide
it
into
lines
to make it easy to live.
Furthermore,
if you can’t find a way to speak of genocide,
of long-gone motherland and enemy
write a poem immediately
so that the textbook of History could be understood easily.
Probably there is no need to say -
if your country is rocky and alumina
whisper a poem while burying dead people
to make their souls rest in peace.
Translated by Tatev Chakhian
EN 
MK