the promise
the wine glass broke spilling a thousand wishes like my childhood secret and the tell-tale stain on my dress shall we vow without witness freedom the only indelible promise michèle voltaire marcelin
reflowering
the world tonight may end tonight you have laid bare your soul so beloved am i dry branches flower into trembling blossoms as i pass by michèle voltaire marcelin
white lillies
to leo coltrane you’ve filled the house with white lillies so sweet is the air with their perfume i am now strolling in a scented garden blossoms at night and your face fill the space with clear light michèle voltaire marcelin
the edge of the world
twice i kissed my life away twice saw ghosts at the edge of the world where half-woman half-fish i drowned my million nights alone in deep sea sounds and reckless waters that opened wide and forever slipping into me wave after wave after wave an infinity of salt was it your voice brought me [...]
dreamscape
what magic names of places shall i whisper in the dark while you hold me so we travel at least through the night what sweet syllables of cities ancient or new what bird-laden trees in what gardens shall i offer you so that at last i see the world with you walk with me [...]
Persephone
(For Djenane) they take our girls our women carry them off to darkness we wait heavy-hearted by the telephone until the knot in our throat dissolves each instant an hour each hour a lifetime as we wait for Persephone to be brought back home michele voltaire marcelin
birdtrap
![Oiseau[1].2](http://www.lidous.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/Oiseau1.2-150x150.jpg "Oiseau[1].2")
there’s something special in your glass and in your eyes i have to be careful not look at you too much i could be snared like a bird in a trap unless i scorch my heels running away from you michèle voltaire marcelin
let me be
let me be i want to live truly the truth of my loving with a silk rose at my throat a black shawl around my hips and a hand on my heart’s wound dear love, i don’t complain it’s just another scar but let me be i want to die with a song on my [...]
stray dog bar
through the rain i hurried to the stray dog bar to meet you but you never came tonight i will drink five star rum eat peppers till my eyes water no one will know the burning of my heart or my tears are caused by your absence michele voltaire marcelin
Under A Certain Little Star
by Wislawa Szymborska I apologize to coincidence for calling it necessity. I apologize to necessity just in case I’m mistaken. Let happiness be not angry if I take it as my own. Let the dead not remember they scarcely smolder in my memory. I apologize to time for the muchness of the world overlooked per [...]
forever
Night has come again and brought you to my door i tell you plain in this pale yellow corridor years cannot be longer than the days i’ve missed you ah, my love, encircle me in your arms and keep me there forever well, as long as forever can last days are shorter now that summer [...]
bonjour tendresse
come it is night i’ve put ribbons in my hair for you to unravel there is wine to drink until we drink our eyes there are mussels and cockles to suck and eat until we lick each other’s salt you bless me with nights of love and sleep and when day claims my eyes you [...]
lettre d’amour
darling, the letter said i will conceal nothing i am wild about you can’t you understand i’m on fire missing you last night i was in some dark alleyway in my dream suddenly it overflowed with light when you appeared and i woke up saying your name darling, there’s a fire under the moon [...]
stone field
you say i do not sing of joy but of sorrow you say each word is a reproach each a stone you say rest that fierceness erase that debt i see the sky change to fire lighting up my empty bed michèle voltaire marcelin
absolutely
if you should think of me later and recall our time together do not count in months, no, not in numbers count in love and in pain, in tenderness count in silence and the weight of absence remember how the scent of you found its way through my hair how i enfolded your body through [...]
one day
one day we will go to paris and sit in a café and drink wine when the sky flowers rose-red and paints shadows on the ground we will kiss on the bridge where apollinaire sang of love-pains on the seine we’ll be rodolfo and mimi in la bohème and have poetry and bread in a [...]
the promise
children die do not talk to me about prayer or paradise talk is cheap children die and my anger supercedes my grief remember it was a november morning like any other when the plaster the bricks the mortar came crashing down children die under the rubble of the promise women cry the air is [...]
Tragédie tropicale
Ma mère est morte en couches. C’est un secret de famille, mais il a été mal gardé; il s’est ébruité, éventé. Oui; il est devenu du vent. Il s’est faufilé dans l’air, s’est s’éparpillé, a passé à travers la gaze des rideaux et fait voler comme des mouches, cet assemblage de mots bourdonnés d’oreille à [...]
After his departure
What is her name? What can she possibly be thinking about? The first time I saw her, she was gracing the cover of an English translation of Zola’s Nana. She never seemed quite at home there. This was no courtesan, but a woman plunged deep in reminiscence after her lover has gone. Then I found [...]
Darwin, Lincoln and…Haiti?
“That there is suffering, no one will dispute it, but according to my judgment, happiness will decidedly prevail.” Darwin(according to Beaty) “Four score and seven years ago, my heart began to break, and for a while, I did not know what it meant to be free.” Lincoln(according to Beaty) Was there a relationship between Lincoln [...]
3Penny Opera
In 1976, the year I started studying at the Aaron Davis Center for the Performing Arts, Joe Papp of the N.Y. Shakespeare Festival staged a revival of “Three Penny Opera” at the Beaumont. It featured Raul Julia as the murdering, whoring, Macheath, prince of thieves in stinking, corrupt London. I loved the play and had [...]
masquerade
first i will cry then i will lose sleep over you and go quite mad for a few weeks covering my head with ashes dressing in sicilian widow’s weeds i will not care for food or drink my friends will not know what to think i’ll sing sad songs in the mirror trying a range [...]
All of a sudden
Everything happened all of a sudden. All of a sudden daylight beat down on the earth; There was the sky all of a sudden; All of a sudden steam began to rise from the soil. There were tendrils all of a sudden, buds all of a sudden. And there were fruits all of a sudden. [...]
absence
i say i am fragile brittle like glass today i say i miss you you tell me there are 8 million people in the city 30 i see each day why is it then your absence turns my heart into a wasteland? michèle voltaire marcelin
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), both of which garnered rave reviews.
Her writings are also featured in a 500 page anthology of Haitian Literature by RAL’M, the French Revue d’Art, Littérature et Musique (2009). 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 MS from The New School for Social Research.