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