KNOT Magazine
Fall Issue 2022
Silva Zanoyan Merjanian
Suicide
We danced once
when all one could hear
was rise and fall of people’s dreams in rem
a cricket’s elegy lost in the evening’s scent
and laughter from life’s junkyard he recycled
in turgid nights with spasms of a gritty hunger
somewhere, rustle of thighs falling sideways
on lies and knives and snap of knees
closing on faux promise of truffles in warm mud
calmed a laugh, scraped a lie off my tongue
he drowned his, in travesty and drugs
we danced
he in his polished shoes
I in bare feet on red tipped toes
reaching almost rim of his mind
burn of strings in dark henna lurching nights licked
to a pale blue in my eyes
his, tightened around his neck, he finally smiled
we danced in his cupped hands
in spittle of poems writ past midnight
in intact fragile shells
till dawn’s nosebleed dripped
on gilt rooftops, bird bones
and cannon’s breath
I tasted morning on his lips
before we wore name-tags in a stampede
lost the music to a final bow in death’s standing ovation
I hear the applause fading, alone on a stage
wearing a laugh too big for my face
tucked behind measured steps, sliding, sliding…
Reading by Eabha Rose with music by John Joyce
Silva Zanoyan Merjanian is an internationally published poet residing in Southern California. She released the first volume her poems, Uncoil a Night in 2013 with all proceeds donated to Syrian Armenian Relief Fund. Some of the publications she’s been featured in are; Streetcake Magazine, Miracle-ezine , The Literary Groong, Mad Swirl, The Galway Review, The Artistic Muse, Poet’s Basement at Counterpunch.org, an international political newsletter, The Oddity, Red Fez, Young Men’s Perspective volume 3, Munyori Literary journal, Ygdrasil, a Journal of the Poetic Arts, and The Orignial Van Goghs Ear. She is proud to be part of the Anthologies ‘The Art of Being Human- An Anthology of International Poetry’, volume 3 and 6. Sagittarius, The Inspired Heart, Editions 1 & 2, a collection of International Poetry by publisher Melinda Cochrane, the Blue Max Review, and Songs For Julia :An Anthology by Julia Priest. Silva was shortlisted for the Fermoy International Poetry Competition 2012, and was invited to Ireland in August 2013 to introduce her book Uncoil a Night. She is invited again to read summer 2014.