Stones don’t bleed
It is time the stone made an effort to flower said Celan It is time it bled red I say And love And love And love flowed out of its wound for ever and ever Amen The calendar says September but why so short the time to dance The pace of clocks has been quickened […]
Birdflight
When I was told I was to die Such beauty I witnessed in the sky Birds dancing round and round A flurried dance of feathers Pale as the clouds Such beauty I witnessed I want to die like a bird in autumn In full flight Sweet with song Michèle Voltaire Marcelin
sweet death
let it be my death in a garden behind my house between animal and flower and the murmur of water let it be in a luminous afternoon with bamboos swaying in the breeze let it be with the sun’s last ray the wind’s last breath be mine as well your name the last upon my […]
Poem for the Men of Our Time
Beloved life, my death takes its time. What shall I tell my man, What trip shall I propose? Kings, ministers And all of you politicians, What word beside gold and shadow Stays in your ears? Beside your capacity What do you know Of men’s souls? Gold, conquest, profit, success And our bones And our people’s […]
last wishes
once more our wasted prayers over a crowd of corpses once more our whispers of affliction while we hope once more for rain this time to wash the blood from our hands you do not know you do not know the sadness seizing at my throat the sorrows i’ve memorized this life i hope it […]
life is split at the seams
no one knows the exact number of the dead not even the storm herself though her course is charted and images circle the earth of wind and rain that hurl and whirl swallowing everything in their path (they laid there like dolls one next to the other they laid there as if they had been […]
In the Country of the Dead
So many people die each day that our hearts refuse to register grief” All these dead Who among us will question them Will it still require a massacre and tears for the road beneath the earth to be traced for us Unless this wind that rips into us has made us lose our reason to […]
Le cri
Nous n’avons plus de place dans le ventre pour la rose, pour le rossignol, pour l’âme pour le clair de lune. Et pour le moment, nous nous moquons des affaires de coeur. Nâzim Hikmet (1920)
You might as well live…
Résumé Razors pain you; Rivers are damp; Acids stain you; And drugs cause cramp. Guns aren’t lawful; Nooses give; Gas smells awful; You might as well live. Dorothy Parker Dorothy Parker (b. 1893) She was irreverent, witty, and sarcastic – known as much for her flashing verbal exchanges and malicious wit as for the […]
Morir es haber nacido
La muerte llegó a la fiesta antes que nadie… Quien la sacará a bailar? “…Cómo puede morir una mujer o un hombre o un niño, que han sido tantas primaveras y tantas hojas, tantos libros y tantos pájaros y tantas mañanas y noches. Esta noche puedo llorar como un hombre, puedo sentir que por mis […]
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.