Get to know the poet:

1) What is the theme of your poem?
All’s fair in love and war.

2) What motivated you to write this poem?
We pray for God’s love, forgiveness, and gratitude to be bestowed upon our ex-lovers.

3) How long have you been writing poetry?
Eight years.

4) If you could have dinner with one person (dead or alive), who would that be?
My cousin Ismail Pourvali. In the late 1800s, our family moved from Armenia to Persia. By the 1950s, he had become a renowned journalist, speaking out against the monarchy of the Shah and later the theocracy of Shiite Ayatollahs. His strong convictions resulted in him being exiled twice. He died in Paris in 2005 at the age of 80.

5) What influenced you to submit to have your poetry performed by a professional actor?
My love for English words is unparalleled. There’s something special about experiencing them live.

6) Do you write other works? scripts? Short Stories? Etc..?
I write film essays, soccer articles, and screenplays.

7) What is your passion in life?
Experimental filmmaking and Italian soccer.

Poem:

Roller coasters on merry farms,
with southland Chingona.
Take me back home again,
In the season of America.

Sexed like wildfire and starlight.
Her moonlight radiates desire.
Love is the only keeper,
and I’m getting higher.

Vexed runes of darkness,
black magic and voodoo
Like Romeo and Juliet
Capulet and Montague.

Hexed by Santeria,
The roots of her witchcraft.
I prance with white magic,
Jesus guides my glance.

Shadows dance at midnight
Under this Chicana spell
A black cat crosses my path.
An omen from heaven or hell.

Every alley and byway,
chance leaves its wrath.
All fire lit and lit,
On shattered glass I took a bath.

Of stilettos and of sangrias,
On this night of trance.
Of Chonies and of bloody maria’s,
Never severs, true romance.
A cosmic soul-tie, Everlast.

Get to know the poet:

1) What is the theme of your poem?

What my wife and I were experiencing when we got her diagnosis and later learned she would indeed die

2) What motivated you to write this poem?

It helped me to put into words a lot of what I was dealing with…from when she got her diagnosis to the day she died was just five months

3) How long have you been writing poetry?

This was really my first as a professional writer…I wrote a few when I was much younger

4) If you could have dinner with one person (dead or alive), who would that be?

My wife

5) What influenced you to submit to have your poetry performed by a professional actor?

I had a memorial service for my wife and read it aloud to those in attendance…but it’s nice to hear someone else speak my words

6) Do you write other works? scripts? Short Stories? Etc..?

I’ve written five features and two shorts

7) What is your passion in life?

My family…my second career as an actor and writer…enjoying what I can and being relatively healthy

POEM:

There was a man who had a wife
He thought she would be with him the rest of his life
They had been together so many years
Through good times and bad, through laughter and tears
It wasn’t always easy but as the years passed
They created a life together they thought would last
When one day an intruder made its presence appear
You’re not wanted…get out of here!
But it refused to leave and continued to spread
The man and wife were now filled with dread
There was hope for treatment but she wouldn’t be cured
Their bond was tested yet their faith endured
But things happened so quickly and so fast
The man soon realized this cannot last
As her condition worsened he grew sad
Taking solace in the memories of the life they once had
With each passing week she could do less and less
He tried holding it together but was a bit of a mess
And a decision was made while she lay in bed
Not to continue to treat her but comfort her instead
He thought of all that had happened before
As she closed her eyes which would open no more
And it came to be before too long
This angel named Angela was called home and gone