Childhood Dreams

Look up!
My childhood dreams
are floating in the sky,
hovering beside the moon,
holding the edge of a falling star;
any minute now,
they’ll come tumbling down
like a shower of fireflies
and turn into a ball of ash
when they land.

2010 Helena Malheur

the irony of venting my mind

Expert I am of my feelings and
I have mastered their release;
but the great irony of venting my mind
in search of catharsis
is like opening a window to air out a stuffy house
and inadvertently letting in a burglar
to steal my most prized possession:
my sanity!

2010 Helena Malheur

I breathe it in

I found it waiting for me
by the side of the road,
hovering over yellow grass
and patches of snow
peppered on the mountains beyond
and the valleys below--
the peace that left me years ago--:
I breathe it in like the crisp air and
let it pull me closer to the horizon's peak.

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One Stop Poetry picture prompt challenge.

The World Lays Silent

Shipwrecked by the seductive lull of greed’s sirens,
the world lays silent, face down, on a rocky shore
deserted by kindness. Its corrupted heart is
cracked open, leaking conscience into the sea,
quenching a crimson moon thirsty for bloodshed.

It slumbers, covered in perpetual night,
immune to the piecing rays of humanity’s light
till even the sun admits defeat, powerless
against the indolence of a narcoleptic world;

its paralyzed under a shaded tree rooted in ignorance,
indifferent to hungry children watering the earth
with tear drops, and deaf to the virtuous songs of
good-willed men and the wakening cries of mourning.

Helena Malheur  2010

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This is an old one but thought I'd submit it to:  

One Shot Wednesday: week23 at One Stop Poetry - Where Poets, Writers and Artists Meet.

Love Song's Serenade

I’ve gone with you to places I’ve invented
and ones I’ve seen in dreams; I’ve written plays
with lines we’ll rehearse when I sleep.

I’ve strolled with you in sunlit meadows,
danced with you under a moonlit night;
I've kissed you a thousand times, and
heard you call me “my love” at least twice.

I’ve leapt into your arms, felt your cupped palms
on my face, sensed your fingers tangling
in my hair; and I’ve listened to your love song’s
serenade, all while never having left this room.

2010 Helena Malheur

Written for  Poetry Potluck (Week 13, Dreams, Visions, And Reveries)
Above sketch (Daydreaming Woman) by Jed Steen

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NOTE: I've changed the line breaks after a comment with which I agreed...

In love

 IN LOVE

His mouth

Moves around

Her neck, sending shivers

Over her body, her heart quivers

In love


=============================

DOORWAYS

Mouths

Supple, round

Searching, wondering, feeling
Steal hearts and air

Doorways

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Above photography by Lisa Michelle Arhontidis

Her photos and wonderful interview can be found at One Stop Poetry

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These are my first attempts at a cinquain for One Stop Poetry -- picture prompt challenge! Thought I would write two different styles of them -- "Doorways" had been removed earlier but thought I should re-post it.

just being here

i wondered if i was numb
as i laid nestled
in the curve of your arm,
breathing the air you expelled,
your parted lips shaped in a half smile;
and for a moment,
i believed i could understand why
you looked so content
just being here.

if only i could be here with you,
in this moment,
forgetting all the chaos
that distorts the world when we wake
and makes things raw again,
i would be free.

but i am here
rummaging through
the drawers of my mind,
looking for a veil large enough to
conceal the ocean of insecurities
churning behind my eyes,
and still wondering why
you looked so content
just being here.

2010 Helena Malheur

Mirror by Sylvia Plath

I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
What ever you see I swallow immediately
Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.
I am not cruel, only truthful---
The eye of a little god, four-cornered.
Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.
It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long
I think it is a part of my heart. But it flickers.
Faces and darkness separate us over and over.
Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me,
Searching my reaches for what she really is.
Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.
I see her back, and reflect it faithfully.
She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.
I am important to her. She comes and goes.
Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.
In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman
Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.

whispers of fidelity

I did not utter a single word,

yet you knew my silence

more than I knew your love.

You stayed in that gloomy den

awaiting daylight while sifting

through the masks and guises

I wore; I was a naked stalk

covered in a stone shell,

afraid to bear fruit --

till your eyes’ whispers of

fidelity cast out the fleshless fear

and doubt dwelling in my heart.

2010 Helena Malheur

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NOTE:  Thank you for taking the time to stop by my blog. I'd appreciate it if you could leave a comment, but make it an honest one; I am not fragile. I'd like some constructive criticism if you can oblige, since I am trying to better the quality of my writing.

One Shot Wednesday: week22 at One Stop Poetry - Where Poets, Writers and Artists Meet.

My friend, my sister

My friend, my sister --

I recall the days of backyard games,
And birthday cakes
With both our names;
Two days
were all that separated us
From being one.

My friend, my sister --

We never left the cheer of youth
In times we fell;
Scraped knees, wiped tears --
Our aches forgotten
Even after
We were beaten and bruised by life.

My friend, my sister --

Now that you are not here,
That laughter of yours
Lives inside me with your ever
lovely smile.
I still see you out of the corner of my eye.

My friend, my sister --

I see your chestnut eyes;
Beautiful as a sunset in summer
And as spellbinding as your
Cascading hair
And charisma of your peacock walk.

My friend, my sister --

I can’t forget your generous heart;
Its unwavering loyalty to
Everyone you met,
Its constant care for
The two lives
You bore and all the tears it shed.

My friend, my sister --

And each day I remember you,
I do so with the joy
Of knowing you;
I’m grateful for having had you
As my friend, my sister.
Know that my love is truer than blood.

My friend, my sister --
　
　
2010 Helena Malheur

Rage

Since inception I have lived with this,
Calm as still water,
Blue veins and black blood,
The visible traces of life
Outlined in indelible ink on my skin.

I have the heart of a lion beating
through my chest,
Wild and free yet hollow --
A wormhole, cavities of decay from neglect --;
There is no room for regret, only rage

With more fury than the most violent winds.
Quiet as a mouse,
The ravenous animal eats
Away at my logic, 

Resolute in its purpose

Of unlocking the fiery limbs chained

To my tongue

And tucked behind white teeth.

Merciless is their reach, like liquid lava

Engulfing everyone on its path.

2010 Helena Malheur
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NOTE: If you wish to leave a comment, please do so.  But make it an honest one; I am not fragile.

One Shot Wednesday: week21 at One Stop Poetry - Where Poets, Writers and Artists Meet.

Scream

 Inspired by the painting "The Scream" by Edvard Munch



a scream shoots itself into
the bloody clouds and black
tar sea, staining silence.
It rips everything from the root
and throws it to the wind,
dismantles peace from its
concrete base and watches it
storm off into space,
away from the moon’s gaze -
beyond the stars reach.

2010 Helena Malheur

The Scream - by Edvard Munch

Supplicate soliloquy

an old post brought back to spotlight- For my mother

My supplicate soliloquy

was stifled yet again,

upstaged by your shadow.

I hear your voice in raindrops

tapping on my window,

knocking on my mind‘s door.

The redolent scent of your room

is wrapped around my neck

like a tarnished necklace

I refuse to throw out.

I prayed to forget your sadness

in the weight of that graying room,

where clouds of silence floated 

on the ceiling of your youth.

I remember you still, laying limp,

your mind chasing your frail body.

Time, that wretched beast

had taken you hostage,

stolen your wisdom

and drowned you in despair.

Helena Malheur © 2008

Imagination

in a back yard
as vast as Africa,
fields of red earth
bubble jeweled in
dimples of toes;

the putter of little feet
chase echoing giggles,
past the footprints
of purple elephants
plucked out of dreams.

wide eyes float above
sun kissed cheeks,
beyond the desert sky
and into rainforests
of the Amazon.

tiny hands clasp
knots of imagination,
climb higher
than birds nesting
golden eggs atop

a giant tree sprinkled
with magic, where
branches bow to
an emerald throne and
a crown of butterflies.

© 2010 Helena Malheur

I carry your heart - by E. E. Cummings

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)


e e cummings

Draught

on the red earth
of Africa,
thin soil
wrought
with draught,
yearns
for God’s tears.

its little children,
mothered
by hunger,
fatherless,
long for
God's short arms
to wrap them
in love;

they reach
ashen faces
into the sky
waiting for
invisible hands
to wipe
dry sobs
off their breath.

Helena Malheur 2004

Summer in Florida

moist air
lingers like a fog,
stifling my sticky skin,

a white fan vibrates
on mismatched tile,
buzzing;

it sounds like
a bee colony has moved
into the living room.

beads of sweat drip 
down a glass of sweet tea,
onto the mahogany table.

I adjust the volume
on the radio
to hear the weather;

even the weatherman
wants to
loosen his tie.

sometimes,
I wish
I lived in the Arctic.
　
Helena Malheur 2009

Ghosts

The bees buzzing through thick air,
the calls of church bells rising with morning,
and the vacant streets filling with sound from
cars, trucks, and barking dogs,
bring the humming of sleeping ghosts awakening;
time won’t stand still under my head,
and the weight of melancholia sets its home
on my sleepy shoulders, heavier than boulders,
digging into the skin under my neck.

Then, I start my daily cries to God
to save me from this vile despair,
born of nothing and everything.
But, when even his voice can not excise the ghosts
nesting on my eyelids, I paint my tears
on the artificial sky, below the burning moon
and above the burgeoning ache expanding like
my elastic heart, into clouds of black smoke.

Helena Malheur © 2010

Late October

A late October day came to me
dressed as a farmer,
reached its harvest hands
to pick the ripened apples of my love --
buds from seeds of rotten fruit
fallen from the tree of his adoration, last season;
they are now fragrant of countryside and
polished like freshwater pearls.

And in the rustic meadow of yesterday's memory,
white smoke billows from the chimney,
past the open window of my beloved's cozy cottage,
brushing against my intended’s hold
in our quiet comfort and
past the crackle of quivering flames
in the wrought iron fireplace, below
the corniced mantel shelf that is my heart,
shouldering picture frames of intentional smiles.

Tomorrow, he will read to me
from the crumpled love notes stored in his bedside table;
and the letters of his words will dance a pirouette
to the rhythm of his voice like Begichev‘s swans
above the thirsty pillow on the side of his bed.
I'll lay my head to rest, a violet quilt wrapped around my body
and the curls of my hair stretched out on his chest
like Chopin’s Fantaisie in F Minor.

H. Malheur © 2010

J.B.

I've set this house on fire

I’ll set this house on fire, burn it to the ground,
color my bones in the ashiest dust.

I called upon the wind to howl at the flood,
gather up the relics and let them all wash down
deep, (to the deepest of the ocean’s floor,
far beyond the reach of your stark eyes’ spurn).

I whispered to the birds to hold silence aloft,
bestow wings on my voice and let it all soar up
high, (to the highest of the sky’s blues,
far beyond the verbs of your scornful tongue).

I’ve set this house on fire, burnt it to the ground,
weighed the remnants of ash and dust.

I summoned Van Gogh’s ghost to erase starry night,
to choke the yellow moon and shear the cypress' stock
bare, (nude as white canvas, and
far beyond the red or your anger’s torch).

I sent for Poe’s baneful words to curl around my lips,
to soak the vowels in my mouth and leave consonants dry
panting, (barren as a desert dune and
far beyond the green of your envy’s beast).

I let this house burn down, till there was nothing’s left
only bare earth and mud, yet no evidence of dust.
　
Helena Malheur © 2010

Life

Life, a caustic miasma seemingly pellucid in it’s being eludes our common grasp (most of us who think we know what it is, anyway). We stay in the Cimmerian sleep, swallowing endless chapters of philosophy, religion, and science to appear enlightened and to curtail the void of not knowing what it means to be alive or to be dead. Consuming the words of Darwin, Socrates, or even the Bible for that matter, will not fill the gaping hole in depths of our crowded wits. And inevitably, failure to satisfy one’s curiosity for truth or reality surfaces.  Not from lack of appreciation mind you, but from the fear of our fragility, mortality to be exact, and the strangled illusions of the meaning of our existence. On the surface, the illusion of existence that we all know, is to be alive, to be real and not imaginary. And life appears to be a mere compilation of events, all seeming to have good or bad implications.

2009 ~ Helena Malheur

Midnight - by James Russell Lowell

The moon shines white and silent
On the mist, which, like a tide
Of some enchanted ocean,
O'er the wide marsh doth glide,
Spreading its ghost-like billows
Silently far and wide.

A vague and starry magic
Makes all things mysteries,
And lures the earth's dumb spirit
Up to the longing skies:
I seem to hear dim whispers,
And tremulous replies.

The fireflies o'er the meadow
In pulses come and go;
The elm-trees' heavy shadow
Weighs on the grass below;
And faintly from the distance
The dreaming cock doth crow.

All things look strange and mystic,
The very bushes swell
And take wild shapes and motions,
As if beneath a spell;
They seem not the same lilacs
From childhood known so well.

The snow of deepest silence
O'er everything doth fall,
So beautiful and quiet,
And yet so like a pall;
As if all life were ended,
And rest were come to all.

O wild and wondrous midnight,
There is a might in thee
To make the charmed body
Almost like spirit be,
And give it some faint glimpses
Of immortality!

James Russell Lowell's

I drank

soon, I'll forget you wholly.
your face is fading
away, very slowly.
all that remains of you

is your large fingerprint
in a smudge of black ink,
over wrinkled, soft words
you have never spoken,

an antique silver frame,
laid in blood stained glass
skirting a photograph
of denials’ spell, broken,

the waning calla lilies
under your empty chair,
diffused in a puddle
seeping into the floor.
　
your calm footprints of mud
smeared near the open chest,
a permanent dye of ash
pointing at a shut door.

all I resolve to do is
drink these images
like I drank my tears,
for heaps of years.


Helena Malheur © 2008

Morning's Descent

In the desolate void my body fell, knelt;
a heavy breeze slipped through me, unfelt,
past the mirage of affairs gone awry,
as I prayed to the velvet stricken sky,
to hold all the foolish dreams that creep
underneath my eye’s veil, as I sleep.

I wished to find the cure within
the moon lit night, so still and serene.
But darkness that swallows time’s light
got poisoned by the suns' wicked right.
And the bold, flickering morning sun,
burnt me bare, more futile, more sullen.

I saw the amber leaves waver
tugging at the strings of my heart’s favor;
in gentle curls and swaying  twists,
yet I was indifferent at best,
then morning begun it’s descent.
birthing a sin, owed repent


Helena Malheur  © 2010

Unblemished

unblemished
by remorse
or failure
in the flesh,

your essence
intoxicates the air
in the light of the moon
at midnight,

defiant of
the melting hours
slipping past
my grasp.

my vacant ears
need to live
with lyrics of
a moment,

your breath, and
the crickets chirr
behind the cabin
painted in black

near
my mind,
inside
your heart.

Helena Malheur 2010

My love is building a building by E. E. Cummings

One of my favorite poems from one of my favorite poets...

my love is building a building
around you, a frail slippery
house, a strong fragile house
(beginning at the singular beginning

of your smile)a skilful uncouth
prison, a precise clumsy
prison(building thatandthis into Thus,
Around the reckless magic of your mouth)

my love is building a magic, a discrete
tower of magic and(as i guess)

when Farmer Death(whom fairies hate)shall

crumble the mouth-flower fleet
He'll not my tower,
laborious, casual

where the surrounded smile
hangs

breathless

~ E. E. Cummings

 

Flame

The aftermath of old desire
The bunt out flames resigned
And clouds of ash left from the fire
Swelled and swayed in kind

When all the fragments rested still
Sprinkled all ‘round dry dust
A bone-dry, tepid winter chill
Swept up with one loud gust

The rubble landed on its paws
Perched itself on my heart
Dug in so deep with crafty claws
It ripped my bones apart

Skin bruised like devil’s tongue
Dyed sixty six shades of blue
Dented, welted, and over strung
I bound the rest with glue

My heart arose to tick again,
Strummed a lone string awake
To find a new flame to wane
And another dawn to break

Helena Malheur © 2004

sand beneath my feet

I saw the high tide gently rescind
Felt the sand melt beneath my feet
Listened to whispers of the wind
While birds sang with my heart’s beat

The swaying grand palm trees
I heard shake, coil and waver
Like the flutter of butterflies’ wings
Causing my very core to quiver

My shadow dissolved behind me
As I strolled with spring in my stride
I frolicked in the glistening sun
Devoid of boundaries to abide


Helena Malheur © 2005

Secret

the taste of a secret
lingers on the tongue
raw and heavy
it's robust flavors
rustle between teeth
and shout for freedom

a spoon made of guilt
a cup of shame sorbet
one scoop, one bite
one memory at a time
and calm cheeks
keep the truth

Helena Malheur © 2010