love is in season
now has love come in my heart love unending listen how lovely the birds sing ushering the clear light of may careless forsythias bloom sudden yellowness everywhere i proclaim our love as boldly in the goldenness of this day my love has the gentlest eyes a fragrance of leaves and grass i’m reborn in beautyness in the blessedness of […]
in defiance
splashed by moonlight wandering in search of her soul she shone facing the truth of night the darkness of dreams she shone against the green brocade of leaves the entangled nesting ground she shone amidst the sounds of air and wings the prophetic flight of birds singing their farewell note by note she shone despite […]
pavane for a princesse
Everyone called her Princesse because she was one: a true Haitian Princess. A courageous beauty with a sharp mind and an easy laugh who loved to dance and write poetry. She had been preparing to read her last poem “Acquaintance” at a poetry reading this coming Thursday when she was brutally murdered. She was only […]
springtime
this is the way that love began spring opened with your name with pollen-powdered flowers and leaves tangled green in the after-scent of rain fish flowed as freely as kisses all bloomed luminous and startling a miracle of the world so beautiful it’s spring again again i count the days the months endlessly passing through […]
shattered glass
words casually falling from your mouth glass clumsily slipping from your hands shards of words splinters of glass because you do not witness blood because the tears dry quickly you do not think i suffer michèle voltaire marcelin
i am woman
( in honor of my mother who could not say these words but lives them through me) who owns me who owns my laughter i say no one a joyousness of bells resounds deep inside me innumerable seas rise in me wondrous and fierce my lavishness of spirit inexhaustible i rejoice in the world michele voltaire marcelin
dream deferred
you bring me your love like a present and say wait to open it wait with lowered voice till the right day the day of mercy some hallelujah morning you bring me your love neatly wrapped with a bow with a calendar attached when you should unleash a thousand wild stars loosen the twittering […]
offerings
let me my love lie between your legs fragrant with rose apples and june plums with the nakedness of keneps to be plucked and sucked from the hollow of your thighs let me tongue-glide you down into salty sweet licking gently all night feeling the pulse beat through fingertips praying with rosary beads take you […]
sebastiana
in love i always lost myself my heart open to those who passed blind wanderer in a mirror possessed like the sky’s reflection of itself dissolving night after night in the changing fire of men’s eyes seeking myself in their light in their variegated smiles capturing their desires’ breath in pretty bottles kept on a […]
love is blind
does he love you you asked does he love you like i love you does he does he you are so beautiful and sad does he wrap himself in your skin looking for the missing perfume of wild roses falling apart in the wind does he lose himself in the jungle of your hair say […]
lovers
i love my love and he loves me let happiness come in freely through wide opened doors so much of me waited half a lifetime for wished-for words i love my love and he loves me suddenly the lion in my bed who stands growling guarding the gates laid down to sleep when i said […]
the color of wanting
what is the color of wanting my lips will guard the secret i have survived solitude life after life love after love until i came at last to you i know the color of wanting was everything before you meaningless child’s play misspent days running away at the touch of least rain wrapped in the […]
sweet peace
how long shall we wander through the ruins of forbidden cities and lost kingdoms facing the impossibility of love how long till sweet peace is restored michèle voltaire marcelin
night poem
what is the cause of things we part and days go by it seems we belong to no one it is late in the city and i am left alone to sort out my pain what use are words that cannot bring back the face i knew and loved michèle voltaire marcelin
against my will
against my will there’ll come a day when the sudden nearness of you will not be greeted by a song words circling around my head behind my eyelids pushing their way past my teeth i will ask what lies between your body and mine what memories i can’t erase with my skin even as my […]
tangled thread
day after day i sit and sew pieces of you pieces of me fasten you close with my feverish hands crookedly bonding us together the needle going in and out tucking in our frayed edges stitching white to mend past lies colored to embroider shared pleasures pin-pricked fingers tear-pricked eyes obstinately patching hearts trying not […]
sweet wine
i would drink anything offered from your palm water would be sweeter water would turn to wine wine from your palm your palm wine your sweet milky wine would be mine i would drink anything that flowed from your palm michele voltaire marcelin *According to African folk tales, palm wine carried power to the first […]
bottled poetry
“Wine is bottled poetry.” Robert Louis Stevenson Wine and poetry have always made great companions. In regards to poetry, I have willingly followed Baudelaire’s invocation: “Enivrez-vous, enivrez-vous sans cesse…Get drunk, get drunk all the time! On wine, on poetry or on virtue – just as you please…” and I’m very fond of the Omar […]
soul victorious
what seems to tear me alive my troubled tongue cannot explain life not being what i intended and love not forthcoming grief, a fishbone stuck in my throat pain blinding me, naked light shadows on the wall turning bright seeing another day, the only miracle so i go on living it hardly matters where out […]
adieu
for a moment this was real for a moment i believed it but happiness long expected long delayed no longer seems probable even if it leaves me inconsolable shall we put this dream to sleep but before you turn away and walk out into the evening with your body and its dangers your scar, your […]
i speak of palestine
I speak of Palestine by Robert L. Green, I speak of your insistence on believing what you’re told to be so blind: you must have learned what not to know to be so cold that you can say “These people do belong inside this tomb.” They cannot move or live or eat And, yes, I […]
a sixteen-year-old girl
This girl, I can see her; I see her frail silhouette leaning against one of the columns of the Grand-Rue – the indelible image of solitude and distress. By Haitian poet Rudoph Muller, a poem that trembles with human presence: A 16-year-old girl who’s standing on the corner of Grand and Miracle Streets at 11 […]
roleplay
she coveted the role of queen (a character cool and serene) but temperamental discrepancies (she lacked gravitas) would not allow her to be cast as other than the heroine of hopeless love the subject of men’s fancies between wild caprices and staged despair she was like berenice tearing her hair since the king was not […]
vivaldi’s tune
it was spring it was time to bloom it was a surprise it was la belle vie it was a dance it was peaches and it was wine it was a kiss it was a silence it was the first time it was scary it was sweet and it was slow it was a poem […]
Michèle Voltaire Marcelin is a poet/writer, performer and painter who was born and raised in Haiti, sojourned in Chile, and currently lives in the United States. The publication of her first novel “La Désenchantée” (CIDIHCA, Montréal-2006) was followed by its Spanish translation “La Desencantada” and two other books of poetry and prose: “Lost and Found” and “Amours et Bagatelles” (CIDIHCA, Montréal-2009) - translated into Spanish by Editorial ALBA as "Amores y cosas sin importancia" - all of which garnered rave reviews. Her writings are also featured in 3 anthologies published in France: "Cahier Haiti" (published by RAL'M-2009), "Terre de Femmes" (Editions Bruno Doucey-2011) "Revue Intranqu'îllités" (2012). She speaks and writes fluently French, English, Spanish and Haitian Creole. She has a BFA from the Leonard Davis Center for the Performing Arts at CUNY and a Masters from The New School for Social Research.