HELENA M. JOHANSEN
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Writing

Flash    Fiction   Poems

This is not poetry

3/14/2022

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This is not poetry

This is not poetry 

I did not want to write.The deadline for tomorrow’s reading approached, and  I promised myself to wite for an hour. One hour,  I said to myself, was nothing. If I do not write a piece of prose, I would write a poem. I used poems as cheap quick fix when I got lazy before, and why not today.  
    There are a lot of poems written about the War. All kinds of wars. Writing about a war today, of course, would be a suitable subject. Perfect for scoring bonus attention on actuality, and if I chose to write about a war in the form of a poem, I would certainly save some time. 
    A story about my grandma’s and grandpa’s War would serve a good introduction from where I would zoom into the actual state of things using some facts from the News feed. From the stories I remember about WWII it was all about the bombs, killings and piople refuge. My grandma told me about body pieces hanging on trees. They saw them hanging like fruit on trees after they crawled out from the shelters. These were pieces of people  who did not manage to reach shelters, and their remains were unrecognisable. None of the living knew which part could possibly belong to whom, whether they were their own relatives or neighbours or just someone they did not know at all. After a bombing the locals simply calculated who was missing and reported them  “missing people” to the authorities. 
My grandma told me that her brother was a “missing person” . The letters from soldiers in the front normally arrived in a three-corner folded piece of paper. The country was saving on paper and soldiers wrote letters and folded them, so they looked like triangles. My grandma knew that those who received the triangles were the lucky ones,  the triangle-folded papers were letters from the living soldiers. 
     The letter she received about her brother came in an envelope. It was a gesture of honour from the government to announce the deceased soldier to the family. The family received an enveloped card with the name, but with the exception of that in the column of date and place of burial it was stating “missing without trace”. 
    Grandma told many stories about death, hunger and  violence which were brutally truthful but would definitely not provide me with the proper material for a poem. My memory flashed back to Riga in 1991, when I was excited for Latvia gaining independence from the Soviet Union and the political events of crushing the old state collided with crushing of the moral norms. When the iron curtain was removed taking away the fear of the threat of nuclear bomb explosion, it opened for threaths of destroying the nuclear values of society. People's parts were not hanging on trees , they were found in different locations of the city. Mostly young girls who did not return home after late night clubbing or opened the doors to the deathly friends who knew they would never get punished for their crimes since all the societal security was concentrated on supporting the new political order of the liberated state. 
    I just did not want to write, and tell my truth. The truth anybody would want to hear would be a commonly accepted truth - generic and suitable to serve at the coffee table with the evening News feed on the wall screen. This would show the Ukrainian refugees met by family members on the border with Poland with the poetry of happy tears running down the cheeks. 
    I asked my grandpa’s neview, who is my distant uncle,  if they managed to flee on the save distance before the bombing started in Kiev and the message beeped back: “Yes. We are in the Western part of Ukraine close to the border”. I wondered what one could bring along in a little car together with two teenage children, an eighty-six-old sister of my grandpa who is my uncle’s mother, his wife and her own mother of seventy six.
A few hours after my uncle’s message, we spoke on the phone and he asked me  joyfully: “Do you remember the teddy bear you gave us? My youngest does not leave alone for a second. It is here next to him on his bed”. The teddy bear, untorn and warmed by the heart of the child in the transition between two paradigms and two epochs. 
This is the truth I did not want to write. The truth which is not ornamented by literary devices of metaphors and allegories. This is the piece that will never become a poem of a lazy writer who wants to reach the deadline. 
   March 8, 2022
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Sunrise rabbit

2/28/2022

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Sunrise rabbit


The sun rays touch my rabbits ears 
I jump from bed as sunshine just appears.
My mom is still asleep, I will not wake her.
I will run down to see if I can make it

If I can make to see the sunshine from the clouds
Before it rises up, before it wakes the ground,
Before the morning brights will  burst my window
With shiny yellow, white and marshmallow.

The clouds come from distant country
They carry moon and sun towards me
The sun goes up, the moon descents so slowly 
The clouds hurry and dissolve for always

The clouds pass me - they are white apples,
The sugar cotton, and white ice-cream cones 
They carry dragons, fairies, dogs and people
I wave to them, and say “Good morning”  to you all! 

November, 2021
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Mother bear lullaby

2/28/2022

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Mother bear lullaby

​The milk of snow is mixed by silver spoon
The dark of night  approaches us so slow
And mother bear sings a lullaby
When you wake again, the sun will  shine

The stars are amber on the winter sky 
They shine the way for ships and planes right now
We drift along, we’re bears on the the ice
With creamy way proposed by stars

The stern grey seas surround us, 
As we will float along into the world of dreams
Your gentle fur and my old paws 
Will all be covered by the gentle snow

Your warm sweet little heart is next to mine
And as the wind will howl, 
We’ll drift along, we’re bears on the ice
With creamy way proposed by stars

November, 2021
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Do not Believe yourself

7/6/2021

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Michail Lermontov (1814-1841)

Do not Believe yourself

​Не верь, не верь себе, мечтатель молодой…
​
Que nous font après tout les vulgaires abois
De tous ces charlatans qui donnent de la voix,
Les marchands de pathos et les faiseurs d'emphase
Et tous les baladins qui dansent sur la phrase?
(A. Barbier)*
-----
Не верь, не верь себе, мечтатель молодой,
Как язвы бойся вдохновенья...
Оно — тяжелый бред души твоей больной,
Иль пленной мысли раздраженье.
В нём признака небес напрасно не ищи:
— То кровь кипит, то сил избыток!
Скорее жизнь свою в заботах истощи,
Разлей отравленный напиток!
 
Случится ли тебе в заветный, чудный миг
Отрыть в душе давно безмолвной
Ещё неведомый и девственный родник,
Простых и сладких звуков полный, --
Не вслушивайся в них, не предавайся им,
Набрось на них покров забвенья:
Стихом размеренным и словом ледяным
Не передашь ты их значенья.
 
Закрадется ль печаль в тайник души твоей,
Зайдет ли страсть с грозой и вьюгой,
Не выходи тогда на шумный пир людей
С своею бешеной подругой;
Не унижай себя. Стыдися торговать
То гневом, то тоской послушной,
И гной душевных ран надменно выставлять
На диво черни простодушной.
 
Какое дело нам, страдал ты или нет?
На что нам знать твои волненья,
Надежды глупые первоначальных лет,
Рассудка злые сожаленья?
Взгляни: перед тобой играючи идёт
Толпа дорогою привычной;
На лицах праздничных чуть виден след забот,
Слезы не встретишь неприличной.
 
А между тем из них едва ли есть один,
Тяжёлой пыткой не измятый,
До преждевременных добравшийся морщин
Без преступленья иль утраты!..
Поверь: для них смешон твой плач и твой укор,
С своим напевом заучённым,
Как разрумяненный трагический актёр,
Махающий мечом картонным...
 ____
* Какое нам, в конце концов, дело до грубого крика
всех этих горланящих шарлатанов,
продавцов пафоса и мастеров напыщенности и всех
плясунов, танцующих на фразе?
О. Барбье. (Франц.)
Do not believe, do not believe yourself young dreamer…

Que nous font après tout les vulgaires abois
De tous ces charlatans qui donnent de la voix,
Les marchands de pathos et les faiseurs d'emphase
Et tous les baladins qui dansent sur la phrase?
(A. Barbier)*
-----

​
Do not believe, do not believe yourself, young dreamer, 
Beware of the inspiration as it is an ulcer…
It - either is a sick delirium of your soul, 
Or an irritation of your captive thought.
Do not try to look in vain for Heaven’s sign in it: 
Blood boils and excess strength exchange each other!
Drain rather most of your life in daily worries, 
And spill this poisoned drink!

And if it will occur to you, in cherished magic moment, 
To open in your long silent soul
This long concealed and virgin spring
So full of the sweetest and simple sounds, -
Do not believe them and do not give in, 
Dismiss them with an oblivion instead: 
Your measured verse and hard-eyed word, 
 Will not convey the meaning ever.

And if the sorrow creeps into the secret corner of your soul, 
Or passion throws oneself in you like it is a thunderstorm or blizzard, 
Do not  reveal this wild enchantress  to festive noisy crowd
Do not demean yourself. Be ashamed to trade your 
anger, your affliction or to
Expose the pus of hearty wounds so openly
To foolish rabble.

Why would we care if you  have suffered or have not?
Why should we know your worries
Or hopes of  your early days, 
Your wicked mind’s regrets?

Just look: in front of you there is a  happy crowd which walks 
Its happy and accustomed way; 
No trace of worry on these people’s faces
No shed of an indecent  tear

And yet, there is just hardly one of them,
Not scamped by some severe torture,
Who reached the early wrinkles
Without any crime or loss!..
Belive me, they will laugh at you when you will  groan
And as you will reproach them in your crying sonnet that  you will moan like tragic powdered actor repeatedly 
while waving with a cardboard sword... 
 ____
* Why, at the end of all, would we care about the rude 
screams of these bawling charlatans,
sellers of pathos, masters of amplification and the
dancers partying on a phrase?
A. Barbier  ( translated from French)
​
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Home

5/19/2021

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Home
​

Time rolls the waves , some edgy and some smooth. 
They roll over the shore. They deepen into capricious weather. 
The deepest waters are the darkest. Winds and streams change the waters’ colours. 
What if the motherland is not a land but water?
What if  its fluid mass that does not belong to any certain ground? 

I bring my water colours to the shore - they are capricious. 
I choose ochre for the horizon line, 
I move my brush to let the water run.
Then pick sienna to dissolve the yellow. 

The water takes its path, no frame and no restraint. 
I do not choose to stay one place for long. 
The colour shows its way. 
Like water I do not belong, 
To either side, I pass and rest one place, then rush and fight another.

​May, 2021
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Thinking in the dark

5/19/2021

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Thinking in the dark
​

I went for a walk to rinse my mind
A walk with a dog, to think over life
Dark is the path, lights around
Casting my shadow, long behind

A walk and a dog, lights and shadows

Dark is the path, no noise, simple sounds
A corner, a turn, the dog is guiding
Dark is the path, long shadow behind me

​I know I comply and will reassemble

I went for a walk to shake of off the shadows
Dark is the path, submissive to guiding
I think over life left behind

​April, 2021
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Марина Цветаева

5/17/2021

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Марина Цветаева​

Мне нравится, что Вы больны не мной...

Picture
​Мне нравится, что Вы больны не мной,
Мне нравится, что я больна не Вами,
Что никогда тяжёлый шар земной
Не уплывёт под нашими ногами.
Мне нравится, что можно быть смешной --
Распущенной — и не играть словами,
И не краснеть удушливой волной,
Слегка соприкоснувшись рукавами.
Мне нравится ещё, что Вы при мне
Спокойно обнимаете другую,
Не прочите мне в адовом огне
Гореть за то, что я не Вас целую.
Что имя нежное моё, мой нежный, не
Упоминаете ни днём, ни ночью — всуе…
Что никогда в церковной тишине
Не пропоют над нами: аллилуйя!
Спасибо Вам и сердцем и рукой
За то, что Вы меня — не зная сами! --
Так любите: за мой ночной покой,
За редкость встреч закатными часами,
За наши не-гулянья под луной,
За солнце не у нас над головами,
За то, что Вы больны — увы! — не мной,
За то, что я больна — увы! — не Вами!
May 3, 1915
I love that you are not in love with me,
I love that I don´t love you either,
And that the weight of the entire globe will not dissolve from our feet below us.
I love that I can play a fool
Be frivolous, rude, - address you straight and forward,
And breathless blush will not caress my cheek, when you would catch my eye.
I love that just in front of me, you would embrace another woman,
And that you will not curse me for kissing others
My tender name, my tender, you'll remember not at night and day, and not regret it either…
That our names will not be high-cord sang in one cathedral’s silence!
Thank you by hand and by my whole heart that you, not knowing it - love me so much!
For giving me my rest at night ,
For seldom sunset greet,
For never walking under moon sky,
For not neither Sun nor shine 
For that you,  alas, are not in love with me
For that I,  alas, do not love you either

May 18, 2021


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Conspiracy

3/27/2021

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​Walls in airports are solemn. They charge on secrets that they’d not tell. They guard.
Outside you fly. Inside your feet are free to move. The pace is different. Some feet are running, some walking, some clicking the floor.  There is scratching, talking, laughter, crying and shrieking. There are directions. There are gates. The is a way in and there is a way out. 

You can lean against the wall and look for silence. Once and again you’d find it. Surprised,  you would rise your eyes, and see figures that do not move.  

They stood not far from me, but not as close. Two men. Dark coats. The same height, bold heads. Holding each other very tightly, they stood very still, cheeks touching in perpetual stillness. I watched them.  “Did these two men cry, love, lived togehter? Did they just meet or do they move apart?” 

The walls and I would not know. We let them stay. I stepped away and passed the secret to the wall. 
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Point Taken

3/27/2021

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In English, we’d say,” trust your gut“. In French the word is goût, it is spelt like “gut, only with an “o”. It means taste. It means passion.  Trust your gut. Trust your passion? Gut and passion. It moves you forward.  It is igniting!

Passion is an action. Passion is merciless. Passion is toxic. It is seductive, it flies you up the stairs when the odour of freshly brewed coffee intensely leads your nostrils up and up. Passion plays with delight.  It adds the leathery foam to your coffee on the lips, it tickles your tongue. It lets the sensation of hot bitter liquid melt with the sweetness of the colder foam.
I would run-up. I would enter the door on the top floor.  A warm coffee smell would blend with the floral freshness of the newly-cut tulips on the reception desk.  Inside.
I would sip from a tiny espresso cup. I would carry a conversation, surrender my gut to the black liquid - soft on my tongue. Caramel espresso - “Le goût du risque.  Passion for taking risks.
When satisfied, it exhausts. Its sweetness dissolves. I step down the staircase, away from the odour of coffee. The sharp, dry taste would cut my tongue and crave the simplicity of water. Outside I’d open my mouth and breathe cold air in. 

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Listen to the light

3/27/2021

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​“Who switches on the stars?“
“Ask grandpa” My boy replied
“My grandpa knows. He tried to die and went to sky, and he became a star.”

But would he know how stars turn on? How on the dark of night the bright spot tears through?
Ask grandpa. At night and he would return again as star. 

Did someone ask the stars to be switched on?  Who needs that light? 
The dome turns black, the gems shine bright. 
They cluster in the Milky way and die as dawn arrive. 

Ask granpa, ask them all - why do they shine. And listen to the light. 
It leads the way, it shines.  The fears leave the night. 

Then sun returns - stars shy away and die. Before the go they say,  don’t worry I ‘ll come back tonight.

Who switches on the stars?
The grandpa knows, just listen - he will return at night.  
.
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    Author 
    Helena Magidas Johansen

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