Armenian Coffee

Armenian Coffee
A brass coffee pot, Arabic inscription,
one spoon of coffee… Edna’s,
made in Los Angeles by Armenians,
immigrants from Iran. Bought off Kensington High Street
in a Persian shop, price extortionate.
Together we are a strange concoction,
a long way from where we began:
my forebears from the region of Nakhichevan,
now inside the borders of Azerbaijan,
came from the town of Jukha.
400 years past, their hard-won success
was financed by trade built on silk.
Chock-full of fine churches, superior houses,
it roused the sovereign Abbas.
This Shah, so ruthless, killed or blinded his sons,
to stay King of Kings, Shahanshah.
He burnt it all down, their town;
forcing them to resettle
in Isfahan, his capital: ‘nesfeh jahan’.
In ‘half the world’ they created a new Jukha,
as Armenians are wont to do
and their taxes of silk financed his empire.
All that was left of that township superior,
was a cemetery; but one of exceptional criteria.
Unesco’s heritage status bestowed, was swayed
by caviar diplomacy; they said not a word as it was hammered to dust,
mindlessly ordered by history revisionists
that wiped away all trace of our past, with their fists.
Instead they declared ‘Azerbaijan – Land of Tolerance!’
What a joke.
Once the coffee’s drunk, leave the dregs
for that’s where future lies.
Balance carefully the saucer on top,
then in one swift turn (towards the heart),
upend the cup. Let be whilst coffee sludge, gravity pulled
congeals into a muddy puddle below.
Patience.
Now look: the future’s bleak, it says.
A fish, rising dorsal fin, eye distinct and mouth agape,
in a boiling, landlocked sea.
Look here, her face – the black Madonna,
now her eyes put out by what she sees.
Gazes into a pit of decrepitude, murder and lies
her churches and sacred sites reduced to rubble and sighs.
That old grandfather Artsakh dragged from his house, cries:
“What have I done to you?”
whilst young guns aroused, slice off his ears.
Bloody and battered he dies.
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Meanwhile, their algorithms churn out fake news,
inventing atrocities to mirror their own. The world jostles
to get the best views: Armenian Davit
pitted against Azeri Goliath in a mismatched game of thrones.
Syrian mercenaries, salaries paid by King Turk, alongside their soldiers
skin alive and behead POWs, taking pictures and posting
the revolting carnage on victims’ own phones;
a gruesome keepsake for their loved ones to own.
The President of Turkification
is finishing the task begun by his forebears.
On British soil another politician, (whose great-grandfather Ali,
Minister of a flailing Ottoman autocracy,
knew the difference between right and wrong, made the greatest folly,
and stood up for his beliefs: that you should treat your fellow man with dignity
no matter creed or race; was tried for treason, his reward for civility
and gifted to the baying crowd who stoned him, hung him,
and stole his tailor-made trews and European shoes).
Boris, whose name change from Kemal,
to ‘fit as a butcher’s dog’, licks the balls of Erdogan
and gives him titbits of PPE contracts that fail quality tests on arrival.
King Turk brandishes not one, but two Trump towers,
gags the West by holding back tsunamis of displaced,
who would otherwise cross the Channel in boats,
to prove that our moat only magnifies their hopes.
Shushi-Shusha, Shushi-Shusha,
A town swings back and forth
changing hands through time; built a mountain fortress
and bustling with life, is now empty
save for ghosts, sharp shooters and dogs.
The townsfolk, displaced to the enclave’s capital,
dream unsettled dreams in dark, dank cellars,
hopes of self-determination crushed to dust.
These are the lucky ones:
others white phosphate burnt or hammered to pieces
by cluster bombs and Israeli-made drones.
In Europe the grey wolf pack, obeying a hunting howl
sent out by a million Turkish twitter calls,
roam French cities in search of Ermeni,
club hammers and sharpened knives at the ready.
Meanwhile Armenians, displaced since millenia
from historic lands, still sick with grief
over genocide unacknowledged, perpetrators unpunished
lament new dead - shouting ‘Pishik the traitor!’
to the Armenian Prime Minister
whose crime? To be elected democratically
and to turn his back on criminality.
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‘What a fool!’ they shout, ‘see what comes from it now!’
But he has paid twice: the price?
A death, potential and political
by signing away their precious soil.
Sacrifice, he says, worth it
to save 25,000 more, a whole generation,
from certain death.
Aliyev, the puppet prince of King Turk,
With absolute dictatorship and family fiefdom
in the satellite state of his Ottoman overlord,
declares that this ceasefire,
‘is our Glorious Victory!’
whilst BP bosses cheep their support of the Azeri cause
to oil their pipelines.
And the Biased Broadcasting Corporation
whose reporters behind Azeri lines
regurgitate their version of events;
whilst Armenian prisoners of war,
are forced to kiss Azeri flags before having heads sawn off.
These atrocities still merit no media attention. But Azeri trolls scream:
‘No mercy! Remember 1992, the Massacre at Khojaly!
With hashtags #stoparmenianaggression, #stoparmenianlies.
And more… ‘See! How they desecrate our mosques with pigs!’
Wild swine - who made their homes in long abandoned digs.
A video widely shared on social media sees
an old Armenian gent, who in Azeri Turkish pleads for life.
Unmoved, the Azeri soldier squats over the ancient’s face
and cuts off his head. Right there.
Azeri lass put off her breakfast, complains:
‘Why share this stuff? ‘It’s disgusting, but a film set plain to see,
constructed to denigrate our triumphant destiny!
Meanwhile the West’s populations hypnotised first
by US elections, then Brexit negotiations,
picking over the scabs of Covid obsessions, sit mute.
This persecuted Armenian race, who suffered
from crimes executed by the Turkish state:
1915-1923: 1.5 million murdered, tortured and raped;
hacked to pieces, thrown off cliffs, burnt in churches,
hungry, thirsty and diseased, stripped of clothes and dignity,
forcibly converted - still refused to die out.
In 2020, their survivors faced a stark choice: a second genocide
or to give up their historic lands; a shady deal brokered
by a Russian oligarch with a pumped-up body and smile of a cat.
Now a new spat: the Armenian population first
united towards victory, in defeat implodes.
Those who baulk at the ransom’s high price
refuse to see that it spared young lives: brothers and sisters
#ourexistenceisresistance! We root, bloom, fruit and grow our tree of life.
© Karen Babayan 2020
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