Red and Yellow Leaves

By Artem Vaskanyan

"Red And Yellow Leaves" is about self-awareness that I gradually attained through deep meditation Yoga practices during the four seasons. As my thoughts constantly arose, I began to reveal them through the ordinary language of poetry in a philosophical way.

"Red And Yellow Leaves" consists of four Books written through short an

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cadmus Publishing
• Release date: Apr 21, 2023
• ISBN: 9781637513484

Artem Vaskanyan

ARTEM VASKANYAN is an Armenian refugee who migrated from country to country, since his young years - up until being arrested and incarcerated in the year of 2000. This set him on a path in search of spiritual and intellectual growth, making him realize that without self-awareness living a fruitful life can never be fully experienced.

Book preview

Book I

First Days of Autumn

Book I Contents

First Days of Autumn4

Only a Beginning!5

No Love 6

A Thought of Loneliness7

We Are Like Fish8

An Empty Void9

A Dream10

Freedom 11

My Selfish Nature12

One Look13

A Cockroach14

Until15

My Cell16

What keeps me…17

Two Spirits18

Brother19

An Evil Spirit20

I thought to Myself…21

Two Men23

In My Dreams…24

The Meeting25

I am a Mountain! 26

Regular Folks 27

Hot as Hell28

A Hell of a Reason30

A Bad Day31

Equally Balanced32

Our Senses33

It was Not…34

Politicians35

Disgusting Feeling36

You are your Spirit37

The Words38

Not in Vain39

Avaricious Men40

Never Forget41

Know how it Feels42

Death43

Despair44

In Debt with the Devil45

An Open Manhole46

Set in Motion47

As of Yet49

The Chickens50

Freethinker51

My Animal Instinct53

Folks Like Me55

RED56

The Only Question58

Fifty-Three!59

When they Came…60

Refined62

A Melancholic Heart63

You can have it All! 64

Out of my Control65

Drop Your Act66

Alone67

A Blessing68

How can you say69

The Best Years70

Ground of Belief71

The Trash72

Ignorance73

The Vagabond74

My heart lied75

Fate76

Outside These Walls77

First Days of Autumn

First days of Autumn

Are the best days out of the whole year

for me,

because that is when I get to see,

the leaves of the trees

turn red-yellow color,

the color of my favored precious metal

That is!

For when I look at trees

with red-yellow leaves,

As if they are made out of gold,

It all of the sudden starts to dwell on me

of how similar it is

to all life in the temporal world.

The beauty of life is like real gold,

that all life finds itself indulging in

when it is at its fullest.

But as life gradually comes to an end

just like every season,

it tries to avoid at any cost,

to deal with,

when it starts to change for the worst.

First days of Autumn

are a wake-up call for me,

for it makes me become aware even more

that life as I know is getting shorter

by each passing Autumn season.

And soon, I will be hanging on

to my last breath,

just like a last red-yellow leaflet,

hanging desperately on to a naked stem of a tree,

for its dear life,

At the end of each Autumn season.

2021

Only a Beginning!

It is all only a beginning!

Not sure exactly why I said

these words to my old friend.

Perhaps I wanted to sound poetic

when everyone around us

were drained out of life,

and that there must be a deeper meaning

to this wretched life

that now is installed for me.

Or perhaps, it was not even I who said these words,

but my disappointed spirit with me

who wanted much more for me out of life,

then this soul-ravaged future life

that I have created,

and who simply could not accept the fact

that there will not be a happy ending

after all for me.

No Love

The way you love your young,

is the way they will love you

when you are old.

I wish you would have known that

when I was young,

for now that you are old,

I barely feel any love for you.

A Thought of Loneliness

I feel my bones shiver,

from a thought of loneliness.

I look around and to my left,

I see a sunset starts to emerge,

behind the trees.

To my right, I see the Watch Tower,

and the guard inside polishing his rifle.

I look up, and see the cloudless blue sky,

and a pair of hawks fly over me.

(Damn! How I wish to be one of them).

I look down to my feet

and see that I am standing on a dried-up grass.

I do not even bother to look straight ahead

to see that soul-crushing wall

that is keeping me inside.

Nor do I bother looking over my shoulder

to see the prison block

where I ruminate at night on a thought of loneliness.

I close my eyes,

slowly exhale to my last sigh.

I raise my head and look up

into a cloudless blue sky,

and pray to be set free one day.

We Are Like Fish

We are like fish

who do not know that they are

in the water,

until they are pulled out of it.

We think that our fishpond

is all there is to this world,

until we see the other ponds,

and only then we start to realize

how close minded we all have been.

An Empty Void

Is this all there is to your life?

Eat, defecate, sleep, and fornicate.

Then your so-called life I must say,

is empty!

And living an empty life

is like standing on the edge of the precipice,

waiting to fall into oblivion.

You must be at least feeling it in your heart

as night after night is passing,

that life without a purpose

is truly meaningless,

unless you start to ruminate on the Self

by digging deep into the heart of your soul,

to overcome fear from uncovering

the hidden dark memories.

Face your fears do not be afraid,

or ashamed to embrace your new Self

who desperately is striving to begin

by filling in with purpose an empty void.

A Dream

There is a dream that feels like a nightmare

that keeps re-visiting me every night,

where I walk alone in the dark forest,

lost, confused, hungry, and cold.

Only the full moon above the top of the trees

illuminating me and giving me hope

to find my path.

I walk in circles as it appears

without finding my way out of the dark forest,

and every time it starts to feel

that I come closer to discovering my path,

there is some kind of mischievous spirit

that wakes me up,

and I return bewildered to the world that I came from.

I desperately await the night to approach

so, I could fall asleep and search for my dream

in hopes to find my way

out of the dark forest.

For I feel as if my spirit

is trapped in my dream,

in the dark forest,

and I must search until I will find my way

to reconnect with my lost spirit.

Freedom

To all who are oppressed, I say

get mad more often at the way

you are being treated by your oppressors!

Once freedom starts to fade away

and you do not put up a fight to stop it,

then your life will never be the same

for you will start to wither away

without it.

When you hear people say,

"Hide your anger, your frustration,

do not