Levon Shant (1869-1951) was an Armenian poet, playwright, and novelist. This is my translation of “The Crescent Moon” from Armenian to English.
The Crescent Moon
From the dark sky at midnight,
it is the crescent’s odd eye
— thin, crooked, and unblinking —
that silently stares into my eyes.
And with a dry, mocking smile,
it’s as if it’s saying,
“Crumb of the universe! What are you doing there?
I know! A great deal! You are thinking!”
Cats chilling
in the shade of an avocado tree.
Birds chirping.
A hue of yellow everywhere the sun touches.
A breeze like the hot air that comes out of generators.
I’m in my study
trying to write on a Saturday that should have been
a Sunday.
Hungover.
Last night – what was I doing last night?
It was my friend’s birthday, and I was partying like
I was still in my twenties.
The beers.
The shots.
Heavy Metal songs.
My neck is sore from all the headbanging.
The smell of smoke and debauchery lingers on
last night’s pair of jeans.
I message my friend to make sure he reached home safely last night,
to make sure he’s still alive.
He’s good. “It was fun.”
I’m on painkillers now, having coffee,
thinking of my upcoming trip and the things I need to do
before heading to the airport tomorrow.
I still need to pack.
Tomorrow, I’ll be in Athens.
Can’t wait.
I need a break from Beirut.
On the sidewalk, I’m smoking a cigarette.
The rain has stopped; now the street glitters under the moonlight
like a brand new street wrapped in cellophane.
I can hear the pounding of a hammer in the distance.
It’s the beat of an old song, the march of dead dreams.
Let me walk towards it…
Years ago, back when I was still a university student
unwisely majoring in English Literature,
when I was a head of garlic in apple cider vinegar
waiting to become torshi seer,
I used to write poems about the dirty sidewalks of Hamra Street.
“You keep writing about Hamra as if you owe it something,” a friend once said.
“There’s more to life than the dirty sidewalks,” another complained.
“You need aesthetics,” a poet recommended.
“Why don’t you try to write about something else for once?” the creative writing instructor asked. “Have you tried Stream of Consciousness?”
What?
Do I look like I care?
In a silence filled with resting melodies, sounds leak
like tears from a rusty faucet.
It’s their voices.
I see their words
dribbling down like embarrassed whispers
to form a pond
in the bathroom of an abandoned apartment
somewhere on Hamra Street.
Mosquitoes will lay their eggs there.
Cockroaches will drink from it
and die.
My beard is unkempt.
The grin on my face smells like sulfur.
I forgot my jacket in the office.
I’m cold.
My socks are wet.
I’m smoking another cigarette on the sidewalk.
It’s been more than a decade.
(Time, once the map of an adventurer, is now nothing
but a wall conquered by moss.)
Where are they all?
I still walk the same street,
on the same dirty sidewalks!
I have my coffee,
I have my beer,
I have my cigarettes…
I am
here.
Where are they?
There’s nothing but the dirty sidewalks.
Only dirty sidewalks.
Do you understand?
All those who said otherwise
are no more –
some died,
others escaped like rats out of a sinking ship,
most of them simply vanished.
And if you ask now, “What is all of this?”
The street will answer, “A recital.”
We were never poets.
The sidewalks were and still are
the poets.
We were always poems
meant to be forgotten.
Come here.
On the sidewalk, I’m smoking a cigarette.
Bored Absurdist 