SILVA ZANOYAN MERJANIAN - POEMS

Silva Zanoyan Merjanian is a three times Pushcart Prize nominated poet of Armenian descent, who grew up in Beirut, Lebanon. She moved to Geneva, Switzerland for few years before settling in Southern California. She has two volumes of poetry. Uncoil a Night (2013) and Rumor (Cold River Press 2015.) 
Rumor won Pinnacle Book Achievement Award Fall 2015 in Poetry category. Merjanian is a highly published poet both in US and international magazines and anthologies.  Proceeds from her books and speeches are donated to charity.  Her poetry reflects a little of what she took with her from each city she lived in.  
www.silvamerjanian.com 

---

​

                                WINNOWING VERSES


In the evening 
the canyon thirst belies
damp gaucherie of siren songs.
Pine needles twitch on evergreens
in anticipation of an interlude’s edge.
Light flickering from windows
softens prongs of silence
as air disrobed slides on nature’s preys.

If I touch your pen
in these ephemeral moments
in the infinite darkness 
beyond the backyard fence,
it will bleed spring’s entailed wounds
on reticent stones. 

You’ll see our faces
lost in a glance in rain's reflection  
breathing longings in a mist
of imaginary friends,
as we winnow verses
catching only inked phrases,
the grain lost in the darkness
beyond our overstretched wingspan.



                                   EIGHT WOMEN RISE

  
Sometimes May arrives like a woman,
skirt still wet with April showers
tangled at the city’s swollen ankles.
The jacaranda throws its purple tantrum
and jasmine bold in fragile scent 

seduces all from damp sidewalk to the sheeple

as eight women in me rise.
 
Eight women in me rise,
yearning more than Spring warmth.
Eight women coil like serpents
‘round a bruised tongue once coy,
silent except for screech of eyebrows.
Eight women’s knees press to chatter of teeth
as love drools under their flower patterned pillows.
 
Eight women love, one like a whore, two like octopus,
another like a slave her hair caught in rays of a blue moon.
Come Fall, one prefers black cotton against her skin,
breath tethered avoiding accidental exhale in dreams.
The girl and the woman in fading black, and the one
in four inches and fish net with ears pearled,
blet on my lips under slathered promises thick and sweet.
You see sometimes May arrives like a woman,
and like a woman it evolves.  
 




          SEND US YOUR POEMS, WOW AND DAZZLE US.
                                   THEME IS FROGS.


I colored frogs in shades of brown, green and gray 
and a few surprises of fuchsia for creativity and diversity.
I gave them names, accessible, relatable, original, universal.
I accessorized limbs and rhymed croaks to the breeze 
stirring the evening leaves. I punctuated the night every hour.

I carved the creek water into rhythms harmonized to African
healing drums. Between the beats I discussed the art of kissing
a prince with frog breath. I even dropped a full moon between my lines. 
I let Spring rain drizzle softly to scent the air and soften beetles
I placed  on their tongues (dip fried in an ode to poets’ ache.)

My tongue, a pile of white dry pebbles; blood still wet on
the poem speckled red, I held dawn hostage and pressed submit.
He said while we find this interesting we prefer to read why frogs
were colored fuchsia, when green’s the color this Spring.
And was that creek in an academic setting? We want

your poetry, we want you to wow and dazzle us. I set free
a hysterical dawn, fried a metaphor with eggs, a side of bacon
and fuchsia frog legs. In other news, a green amphibian
infestation on university campuses was blamed on Spring
breeding mania. Poets in Fine Arts department hustled home
eyes cast downward with no comments.



                                         THE BALCONY
 
​
An ashtray holds evening's grudge
balanced on the rail,
ashes welter in a breeze
snagged in a day’s exhale.
The sun has set without notice
of another ennui lit,
the light's moved on
in its orange crinoline,
leaving a cat
gambling on its ninth life
on the parapet.