“Free” by Haro Istamboulian
Haro is an Armenian-American native of Los Angeles and has been an oil painter and writer all his life. He focuses mainly on hyper-realistic portraiture and writes poems on taboo and human issues that the majority often try their best to avoid. Many open calls and juried poetry competitions have turned down Haro’s work because these very real, daily issues as simply too grim for normal, public audiences. More testimonies of how real-world issues are simply taboo.
A Word from the Author:
The poem was written prior to the current conflict in Israel and Palestine. Being Armenian and having a family from Egypt and Lebanon (where civil wars were rampant in the 1960s and 70s), I've become familiar with having to live with the readiness to leave at any moment with bags packed and an emergency plan in place. Wars and local conflicts are the norm in places such as Beirut, Lebanon and Artsakh, Armenia.
Bombs are dropping like rain across the sea, but here we are simply brushing our teeth
We are not free.
Over here we shower but over there, the rivers dirty water washes her feet I am not free.
You toast to life and love in a clear glass or three while drought dries their kidney as the government bathes in greed
You are not free.
You wed your lover in the church's altar as the man stones and berates his daughter all without a simple show of grief
She is not free.
Bailey, Peter, Kaley, Sawyer, thinking up names for future lawyers but over there the country lets them be
Their name will be their father's fathers, all names without any honors and last names assigned from dictionaries
He is not free.
And in thousands of years just as God is powerful, the love He created has become so sorrowful but not to worry,
...these are all things you'll never have to see.
