And Should I Say?

               "If this room is our world, then let
                    This world be damned."
                              --Weldon Kees (1914-1955)

And should I say that life has any meaning?
And should I write of some eternal blissful love?

The bitter truth has touched me
Way too many times--
My only shield is my undying faith--
Faith that one day our love will overcome
This sense of emptiness, this sense of dark despair--

Look at this world -- how fake these loud bards,
How utterly absurd, how ridiculous! --

I want to live in truth, I want no lies
Or phony celebrations of life's miracles,
I want to strip this world of rooms with empty beds,
Of mindless daily rituals and clocks, of people dying
Of sheer loneliness.

I want to breathe new warmth into your flesh,
Setting afire these endless volumes of
Hollow, pointless literature. I want to set this night
Ablaze with our love.

                                              --Alexander Shaumyan
                                                   August 26, 2004