Kathleen Hellen
Six Poems
Women Talking
When I die, if it cannot be
to the sound of water running over stones,
or of wind moving through the branches of tall pines
or of rain whispering across its wide extent
or of music as it rises and retraces
its familiar arc,
then let it be, at least,
to the sound of women talking, one to another,
just far enough beyond an open doorway
to blunt the sense and soften articulation.
I know the source of this polyphony
of melodies supporting one another
as they spread out in their interlocking circles.
It is an inaudible cantus firmus
of such tender attention
that even a gossipy indifference
will be beautiful to me.
Guiding Narrative
I don’t need to tell you, Oddsong, that
defense from all perils comes in handy
in whatever forest of the night you find yourself,
so sing on and on, even (or so it goes)
at the grave, even if (as is likely)
there’s no one to hear either you or the tree
that will fall on you and crush you, even
before the birds have eaten all the breadcrumbs, even
before you reach the Big Rock Candy Cathedral
where the curate has prepared a supersaturated solution
to all your problems, hope
after hope, after hope, my beloved.
December 30,1994 (from God’s Handgun)
O woman’s anger
is a maleficium
and she is the devil’s
handmaiden,
strewing blood rags
in the cathedral
red as the Cardinal’s
cummerbund.
Forgive me, sir,
I trespass even here.
It’s your womb,
not mine, yours.
A text without context,
inflames your conscripts,
It’s a mean script, a salvo,
with the texture of scripture.
Come in! Come in!
My door is agape for you,
for gun barrels, cocks,
broomsticks, fists.
May I be ground
to your seed, sir,
may I be field
to your plough
your pot to piss in
your midden
your mud hole
your spittoon
Grand Hotel
to all your little mulberries
so meek, so sweet, so mild
your little buddy embryos
who keep the home fires burning
while out you go
to your death camps, gun shops,
wars, and penitentiaries:
They are so
easy to love, no?
Like little fishies
in a pretty bowl?
O sister, my godmother,
my love, my friend,
my woman, my girl, my witch,
the stakes gallows, squads
spell death L-I-F-E
and teach us how
words can kill
and kill and kill again.
Microtonal
Let’s face it,
the searchlights we’ve burnt out
could pave the streets of Upper Glasnost
seven times with enough left over
for drinks on the patio
And, while we’re at it,
that’s not tinnitus
it’s the screech of the hydras
frozen en bloc
in the pond water
of Jesus’ sweet, sweet tears
And you’re still asking me
where you should look?
Before The Brain Surgery
We’d moved out. You’d stayed behind alone
to rid the vacant room of our last traces.
It grew dark. The light switch wouldn’t work.
Your limbs froze in the usual paresis;
your throat closed inches from the telephone.
That, of course, was the dark stranger’s cue
and probably the moment when you cried
out, dreaming. It was an owlish sound,
one I’d never heard you make, that died
into a snore, then breath. How unlike you,
to call out in your sleep! I kicked your thigh.
Next morning, over coffee, you recalled
the room, the dark, the stranger and your scream.
You kicked me? I must say, dear, I’m appalled.
Whenever you have nightmares, don’t I try
to ease you out of them with loving arms?
Quite true. And, often, it’s from the same room
where lights malfunction, strangers come, and screams
get stuck in throats — generic signs of doom
that never quite portend specific harm.
Not like your nightmare. I already knew
the shadows gathering inside the dome,
me lying in the darkness outside you,
the glinting blade, you lying there alone.
The stranger. Darling, it’s my nightmare, too.
It spans insomnia, and restless sleep,
a bridge that neither one of us can cross.
Next time let’s meet halfway, where the bed sags,
both sleep and wakefulness a total loss,
suspended over something swift and deep.
How To Clean A Sewer
There lie the rinds of things,
there in the shadows,
the indigestibles
that shamed the tongue.
The wind that howls through
that matter horn;
the dervish fire hose;
the cold and smothering clods;
the snakeroots piercing
the clotted gourd
to god soul truth love hope heal heart —
there is no fix
but in ash-scour and the scent
of windfall lemons
from the grove of the last
dream before you die.
Physician, poet, and photographer Paula Tatarunis made her home in Newton, Massachusetts. Her work, which layered medical knowledge, natural landscapes, and allusions to history and religion, appeared in numerous literary journals. She was the recipient of two Massachusetts Artist Fellowships.
