POEMS TO HELEN

BY

NICOLAS TRAVERS

 

Helen is my dream woman: she is a flame that sets me afire, and sets me writing. I can say no better.

 

 

Helen 19 October 2001: requesting sight of a manuscript

Craven Helen,

Does courage fail you?

So shy, so torn,

Thoughts all forlorn,

No second chapter giving?

So sad, too bad,

I thought you bolder

 

But now I wist,

I’ll ne’er be kissed

(in mind, I haste)

by countess lusting

I’ll maun be sated

By picture dated

Some time since

Red satin thighs

Will ne’er in me surprise

Desire;

Hot blooded breaths

Will ne’er in me lend fire

To matching yearning

I’ll sulk,

I’ll skulk,

In manliness quite selfish

I’ll fret,

And yet,

I’ll go on hoping

Sweet Helen,

Fie!

And why,

So cruel?

 

Cruel Helen,

Why?

I’ll die

In ignorance unknowing

Repent,

My flame,

My firebrand hidden

Relent,

My muse,

My correspondent warming

For passion’s bidden

And must be ridden

My need is great,

 

And only you can sate

This need quite burning

So sate, and sate, and sate

My need for reading

And sate, and sate, and sate,

My febrile panting

 

Helen 28 October 2001: Poem for a lawyer

Deny me not, fair lady

My kisses wholly dreaming,

Gainsay me not, my dreaming

Thy pleasures wholly pleasing

We’ll sport, in tort

Of all convention wanting

We’ll court, and passions brought

To fever-pitch a-bubbling

We’ll joy

And then, fair soul,

I’ll give thee all thy hoping

For kisses then, in heart

Will salve thy needing

And truth will count for more than all things passing

And past will melt

And passing be forgotten

And past will fade

By future overtaken

And past will fade

By hope anewing

And past will fade

In kisses kissed to waking

 

Helen 31 October 2001: Torrid thoughts

Torrid thoughts, my sweet?

But how can I be matching

When Helen’s form bewitching

Might from my dreams be switching

Svelte curves, and shapes quite wholly charming

In life to shapes and curves almost alarming?

Fie, Helen, sweet dream of mine in languour

Send measurements to quit my hope-filled ardour

So: bosoms, such, and waist, p’raps rather slighter

(If waist still shows)

 

And something else for hips

Then height, of such, and eyes, undimmed

‘cos shot with glances fierce and light untrimmed

by reticence

And weight, quite full?

But fullness wholly pleasing

And colour there, now grayish-green and burning

And same for hair, in fairness waking yearning                      

This day I’ll hear your tone

And in my mind this singing

Will quite support my dreams, now winging

To paradise of pillow, and soft goose down

To shapes and curves that billow - no more I’’ll frown

As ardour filled, quite sated

No more I’ll yearn, now bated

And all my hopes contented

(If billows shapely seem

And measurements are keen)

I’ll know you then, and inch by inch

I’ll scan you,

I’ll know you then, and breath by breath

I’ll win you

 

Helen 31 October 2001: One day

Dear Helen,

First of all let me chide you:

I’ll ne’er accept that foolishness, and teenage pining

Can square with hips of 43

I’ll ne’er see there, no Rubens sighing

All pink and blushing,

With arms akimbo, and bosoms heaving

No, not to say, never

For lust may only wax and prosper

When flesh is taut, and smooth with lustre

When sweat beads out, in passion smoothing

When breath is caught, and loins are moving

In joint accord

 

Yet a day will come

When dreams are dreaming

A day will come

When blood is boiling

A day will come

When flesh has melted

that day will come

When lust is sated

 

And then my arms

I’ll reach around you

And then my heart

will wholly bound you

And then you’ll know

What passions sleeping

Rouse to burn you

 

Helen 6 November 2001: An angel

Dear heaven,

I sense an angel, and an angel’s breath,

Wafting past me gently

Dear heaven, I sense a gentle being

And sensing, know that I am seeing

My future spread before me

 

I have no burden bearing

On me; for angels bear no weighting

I know that nothing giving

Can mar my stating

When angel’s breath is living,

And heaven’s gate

Opes for me full wide

 

I dream, and dreams before me

Map full wide horizons

I dream, and dreams enjure me

In dreaming dreams

And filling scenes of wondrous hopes

And pleasures

 

And then I know, that dreams

No dreaming are

But hopes afar, yet gaining closer

And then I know, that dreams in hope,

Enshrinčd are, and hopes are welcome

And then I know, that dreams will come

To mend my losing

And then I know that dreams will come

To bind my being

 

Helen 7 November 2001: My brook

I have a brook in springtime,

Past my house flowing,

And in my springtime glowing

With each new morning flowering

I find my world all laughing

I have a dream in dreaming

And hopes are all my seeming

Each morning when I’m waking

And then they shimmer, and melt

 

My brook flows past

I know not whence it’s coming,

I know not where it’s going

Yet certainty is there

My brook flows past

Clear water in its singing

Yet song is quickly passing

My brook flows past

And on its way is winging

My dreams, my hopes

 

My brook flows past

And in its flow is taking

All I could have sought

But springtime is but dreaming

My dreams are none but hoping

My brook runs on

And in its flow no thinking

My dreams are gone

 

Helen 9 November 2001: Yearning

Oh, dear Mrs. Schenning, would you allow

A handful of bold words?

Or would you just scowl?

With fiercest of fierce lawyer’s looks

And armed with the weight of all legal books

Force me to retreat?

Oh, dear Mrs. Schenning

You fill me with yearning

For the flash of your scowling:

Ne’er pain could be sweeter

No end would be meeter

Than the torment of scorn

Expressed in hard words

I’d quail, and I know it,

I’d ail, and regret it

I’d quite disintegrate

Just think of the mess

You’d have to be cleaning

Just think of the stress

You’d have to assuage

Just think ……

 

Helen 9 November 2001: Cyberkiss

Dear Helen,

Cyberkiss I sought,

But no kiss came.

I went to bed weeping

No warmth in my heart keeping

No kiss: no joy

So quick I am learning;

So cruel can a woman be

So sere am I burning

Bereft of my yearning

No kisses at all for me

No kiss? I’m a toy,

None but a plaything,

Just a mere stray thing

No kiss? No joy

Can joy still survive

Where no kisses alive

Stand waiting?

‘twas only a kiss

I sought

‘twas only despair

you wrought

 

Helen 9 November 2001: My dream

I scent your breath, my sweet

Above my eyes soft pearling

I feel your lips, my sweet

Along my cheek soft breathing

And in that touch, I’m dreaming

My dream, my sweet

Starts waking

My heart in joy now beating

I ope my eyes, and smiling

Put up my lips for kissing

And kisses now full sweeter come

And kisses now are softer done

Mere breaths of air in smiles caressing

Mere thoughts of hearts in sweetness blessing

To seal our bliss

And when our mouths in joy are meeting

We’ll know full well our pleasure starting

And when our limbs in pleasure twining

We’ll know our bliss

We’ll join that day

And be together

We’ll sing that day

And hope shall never

Our joy betray

We’ll seal that day

With pleasure finding

We’ll mark that day

With pleasure binding

And pleasure binding

Will seal our bliss

 

Helen 9 November 2001: An Application

May it please the Court

In this my deepest, most considered Plea now making,

On Application, and in Affidavit stating

In fullness sworn, and full consideration paid

To view my case with full and just demeanour staid

I merit sympathy, and true compassion,

And wholly out of sorts, must fashion

Now my formal pleading

In hope of justice leading

My case through skilful wording

To total satisfaction

Hear then, kind Sir,

In most exact, my form

Of Claim. For I am bound

And quite entrapped around

By one so far and distant

Ne’er hope can I insistent

Picture an outcome pleasing

I fear my Defendant teasing

Will waste me cruelly

And there is more, I swear it truly

Because I fear Default: I hold slim hope

Of my Defendant holding.

I fear in justice all my grounding

In jurisprudence searching

Will come to naught.

I fear to shed my sanity:

Knowing that ‘‘quem Deus vult perdere’’ **

has oft-times shown

That on the path of vanity

‘‘prius dementat’’ has grown

and waxed full strong

Kind Sir, in justice then

Grant me all my pleading

Deliver me, to wit,

Defendant, one, quite fit

(albeit plump, but crunchy)

To stem and meet my needing

For then in Claim succeeding

My needs will all be sated

I’ll win, and in my winning

I’ll not be devastated

I’ll win, and gain my prize

I’ll win, and shed my sighs

** Quem Deus vult perdere, prius dementat –– whom the God wishes to lose, he first makes mad

 

‘‘Due course of time’’ delaying?

This Court admits it not,

And forfeit must be paying

To close your bond.

A penalty so heavy

Your purse could never levy,

Nor meet

Yet sweet, from you I’’ll take in kind

And kindness granting

I’’ll suspend all wanting

Except one smile

And then perhaps (with guile)

One kiss

 

Helen 7 February 2002: You blush?

You blush?

Tush,

What silly colouring

When two warm lips

On silken skin descending

Forfeit your modesty

Quite altogether

And the limbs you part

From wanton heart

Hot blushes needing

And the arms you close

‘Cause modesty knows

How much you’re heating

And then your blush

No more a flush

Of passion shining

You seek on greater heights

To shine

And meaning true

Devine

For there’s a path

Beyond lust leading

 

Helen 7 February 2002: A furry hunt

Inferred, my sweet

Is not the word

Preferred, more like:

Or e’en befurred

For in those furry places seeking

In feathered glades,

Now closely shorn

I’ll treasure hunt,

And all forlorn

I’ll cast about, and blunt

My purpose making

I’ll seek out baying hounds

For in those bounds,

When pleasures roused are,

The sounds,

Brought on from mounds

in pleasure rising

akin to hounds

in pleasure joying

sing out

and shout;

and pleasure taunting

full nothing daunting

I’ll be not daunted

 

Helen 26 May 2002: A fraud

Woeful dame,

You’ve frauded me: I feel the strain,

Of unrequited expectations

Detail I sought, with nothing spared,

Fancies with passion wrought, to hold and bind me

 

But nothing came (bar wisp of gathering heat)

And nothing burned, save sentiment a pinch too sweet

For passion’s fierceness, pinching my rising ardour quite to dowsing

Instead of rousing

Fond hopes, already wholly rampant

So now, tumescence slowy fading

E’en bound and tied with silken scarves,

I fear I’ll slide to slumber

 

You’ll find me next in dreaming

Quite somnolent,

My ardour bent, and wilted.

I’d hoped for picture most generous

Limned in words to fire and goad me:

I judged your provision quite dolorous

I fear your words short-changed me

 

Your hopes I understand,

And will, in meeting, sating

Pressing thus on you my satisfactions;

But where my love stand now

My hopes of all the lush and lavish actions

You might have planned and plotted

For me?

How can now I count my dreams be dotted

With sighs, and gasps,

and pants and yelps of expectation

When gathering warmth does naught but drive you off?

 

Helen 28 May 2002: Belle Dame

First thought, in sere frustration: beldame

But then I balked; my words all fraught

with fear of spite within me

Belle dame is what I owe you

Dame belle comme lueur d’espoir

Dame belle: reflet de joie

Dieu, j’attends qu’arrive le jour

Dame, j’ai peur, qu’elle n’attend le tour

De mon retour

With some suspicion

 

Translation

Beauteous lady’s what I owe you

Fair as a gleam of hope

Beauteous lady, reflect of joy

Heaven, my hope, desire, my day

Yet pause, I fear, you’ll doubt my way

And view my coming

With some suspicion

 

I’ll brush my lips on yours

My tongue will seek out all your confiance

My fingertips will roam, and gently roaming

Encounter homes of feeling

You’ll have a blouse – my eyes already see it

And straps to loose beneath

My touch will fumble, all eagerness in trying

You’ll help perhaps, at awkwardness full smiling

 

I’ll kneel before you, my lips encircling

Your senses, stoking fires

In hope of setting burning

All your nature

My tongue caressing, my body pressing

To build return

 

I’ll lower me

To press my face against the place

Where hairs should grow, but hairs all shaven

Merely prickle.

I’ll probe to see

Where entrance lies, and seek to enter

My tongue-tip searching,

My fingers parting,

Leg from leg

 

 

And then I’ll know

In stance asunder

Your need for me,

and then I’ll stand, my clothes around me

And turn you round,

And bend you

And pierce you, flesh on flesh,

And flesh in flesh

 

But once our needs:

your need, my need

are slaked

I’ll hold you,

Close, so close

You’ll hear my heart

You’ll hold my heart

And sleep will join us,

and need will bind us

 

Helen 28 May 2002: Silken scarves

I’ll bind you gently, as you lie,

Outstretched,

Your arms and legs full parted

I’ll tie your wrists, and ankles too

With silken scarves in knots of love

Loose fastened

 

I’ll take a cane

With head of feathers frothy

And dance its froth along your sinews

I’ll take my hands

And stroke your calves, and thighs

And arms, and breasts, and cheeks, and eyes

 

I’ll kiss you, here and there,

But kisses gentle – mere breaths of air;

Ignore your sighs

And turn you o’er.

I’ll part you softly

And probing gently

Touch where touch most delicate arouses

Need? Lust? Desire?

 

One hand will hold

One hand will probe

But e’er so smoothly,

My fingers sliding,

In liquid dancing

I’ll test your pleasure

To heights of ardour

I’ll build your yearning

 

And then I’ll leave you

Lying, panting,

Fastened yet,

I’ll smile

To hear your pleading,

And then, perhaps,

I’ll meet your wanting

 

Helen 30 May 2002: Two hearts beating

I see your heart beating

‘gainst my gifting

I see you smile

And in your smile

My heart is beating

 

True faith I bear you

And truth to tell

I’ll ne’er gainsay you:

I cannot

 

Hold my heart against you

Hold my soul

My destiny

Hold my love,

My life

 

I give you little

But strain and sorrow

I give you less

Than man should grant

 

I want you,

Needing

My soul is bleeding

For lack and loss

 

I need you

Heeding: my call

But selfish soul

I am demanding

When I should give

 

I am not worth

Your arms around me

My soul is dearth

Could trumpets sound me

To heaven?

 

I’d lie in your arms

We’d move together

I’d treasure your charms

To be forever

Yours

 

Helen 31 May 2002: My flame

Burn, my heart

In crimson splendour

Fierce-hued

And bleeding

Sadness

 

Sigh,

My sweetness

Bitter yearning

Bleeding, needing

Arms around me

 

Arms? Whose arms?

You come to claim me

Arms? Your charms

Must solace bringing

Sooth me sweetly

 

Your touch,

Your kiss,

Your smile,

Your longing

Fill me

 

Helen 9 June 2002: Jealousy

I will level with you
I will tell you the truth.
There was this story,
Some reportage:
People vamping the Net
Hunting for men,
For women,
Borrowing,
Stealing.

 

I panicked:
Petrified,
Losing my marbles
I had to engage you
And hold you myself.
It was my compulsion
My need, my obligation
I wanted your promise
Your strength
Your devotion

 

I wanted your love

 

Helen 17 July 2002: One day

One day

I will hold you close to me

And press you tight,

One day

We will move together

And in our moving

We will be one

One day

We will slake our longing

Deep within each other

And we will be one

One day

We will dream together

And in our dreaming

And our waking

We will be one

And love will flower

In our loving

And we will know joy

Transcending

And we will be one

 

Helen 18 July 2002: Impatience

I cannot wait

to be with you

I cannot wait

Wholly to bury myself

within you

I need the magic of you, engulfing me

Taking me into your heart

Sharing your heat with me

Bathing me in your sweat

Washing me clean of all past sorrows

 

I will caress you

And make a new thing for you

I will teach you

New paths of love

I will enter you

And hold your devotion

At the very tip of my being

 

I will make you cry out

For the pleasure of loving you

I will make you sigh

In small contented sighs

I will make you die

At the very crest of your passion

And you will need me afresh

As your wave subsides

 

We will be one in each other

Phoenixes in passions that flare

And ebb to embers

And then kisses fresh

Will light new longings;

We will sleep

Each in the other’s sleepings

And then, all my heart will sing for you

and then, all my blood will burn for you

Once more,

And then once more,

And then we will love

And we will love

And love will have no ending

 

Helen 18 July 2002: Smile for me

I want to see you smile,

And in your smiling,

Know that I am welcome

I want to feel you press against me

With people watching

And know that I am beloved

I want so much

And yet I need so little

One smile, one touch

One kiss

Will all fulfil me

 

Helen 18 July 2002: Expectation

My lips will touch you

As I smile at you with tenderness

And my fingers will brush your cheek

So softly

That you will imagine an angel’s wing

Has passed

 

My tongue will moisten,

To touch your bosom,

Where your feelings heighten

My fingers will free your clothing

Caressing it down your flanks

And you will lie with me

In your nakedness

 

My touch will be so light

That you will strain to meet it

My kiss will follow soft

And you will yearn to greet it

And then my mouth, in ardour grown demanding

Will seek to melt you,

And then my need, in keenness all insisting

Will strive to please you

 

And all your sighs

In matching yearning mounting

Will quittance grant

In flesh around me folding

And I will hold you close

My lips on yours

And you will press

Your mouth on mine

 

And in our pressure matching,

Our flesh entwined

Our movement joining

We will be one

 

Helen 10 September 2002: Desire

I feel desire

I need your mouth on mine

Searching me deeply, hunting into my soul

I need to bed myself in your arms:

Twin havens of safety

I want to be within you

 

I want you pressing hard against me

Straining my strength,

Testing my devotion

I want to feel you desiring me

Needing me

I want to know the strain of your longing

 

I want to know the rhythm of your moving

In your striving to win me

I want to know the touch once more

Of your fingers gliding along me,

Of your body sliding against me

Caressing my being

 

I want you to be wholly around me

To lock me completely

I want to bury my heart in your hopes

And your dreaming

I want you to cry out for me

And in your yearning

I want you to weep for me

And in your triumphing

I want you forever

 

I want you so much

And so much is the span of my needing

 

Helen 11 September 2002: Open yourself

Open yourself to me, my love

And part in your needing,

Open yourself to me, my love

And welcome my seeking

Let my tongue trace a line

From your dawn to your evening

Let my fingers roam wild,

And frolic all wanton

Let my kisses from mild, and caresses full tender

To fierce stabs at your core

In hot urgings growing

Let my need pierce you gently,

First soft, slow and smoothly

To grow more demanding

As fires in us building

Enflame us together

Let my loins on your loins

In need ever greater

Conjure your soul

To a peak of hot passion

Let me cling to you then

Bound into you wholly

And rest in your love

‘Til passions new rising

Rouse hot fires new burning

Let me love you, my love

And love you quite wholly

Let me love you, my love

Enthralled in your keeping

 

Helen 11 September 2002:

Dear Helen,

I need you,

And in my need,

Feel a round-the-clock wanting

 

Sweet Helen

I need you

And in my need

Feel a heart-filled demanding

 

True Helen

I seek you

And in my seeking

Must take you for keeping

 

Oh, Helen

I love you so deeply

That pain of deprivation

Must burn me asunder

 

Oh, Helen

Come nestle here in my arms

Right now, here now

And now never parting

 

Helen 13.9.02 pure excitement

Flutterly?

Utterly

And panting what is more

To feel a touch

Where such

Is pure excitement

A fingertip?

A lip?

Brushing my most tender havens

A kiss?

Such bliss

In such a place

Where tip of tongue

Has e’en now wrung

My gasps and exhalations

You press,

I yield

And in my yielding

Quite surrender

Caressed

I melt

And quite undressed

I’m dealt

My greatest pleasure

For treasure:

Culmination read

I joy at leisure

And then I lie

Quite limp

And flaccid

But joy to know

That I will grow

Once more

No acid

Thoughts in me

But only love

 

 

Helen 18.9.02 fair kissing

I think I would rather feel

Fair kisses descending on me;

Small breaths of love:

Quick touches

Of lips empowered to entrance me

And dance me into dreams of passion

Where I might fashion

Such reveries of pleasure,

To fill my leisure

And blind my waking thoughts,

That consciousness would leave me

And all my dreams would weave me

A web of total pleasure.

But these small breaths are none but fancies now:

Separation distances us, my love

And longing must wait

 

 

20.9.02 snuggling

Dear Helen,

You think of being companionable,

And talk of snuggling up to me

But my thoughts are far more hot and fierce

And fired by need

Than wish for tame enlacements:

You set my mind asmouldering

And from a smoulder

To a raging blaze

Is but a skip in dreaming

Distance may part us,

But dreams can distance span

I fill my mind with touch,

And breath, and smile, and kiss;

And kiss you in my dreaming

I hold your heart ‘gainst mine

And in our fulness beating

Sense that I have your heart

As mine

And then my lips explore you

Setting a path of kissing

Your eyes, your lips, your bosoms small

But filled with pleasure granting

Building my wish demanding

Your fingers stroke me

And pleasure yielding, fuel me

My fire, my ardent firebrand, need you

I must myself within you

Hide, and snuggling now

Drive on to glory

But distance parts us,

And all this is naught but a dream

Nicolas

 

20.9.02 wronged?

Dear Helen

Perhaps I wronged you

So fiercely my ardour pressing

Perhaps we should merely sit

Quite quiet and side by side

Our fingers intermingling

Dreaming our thoughts of tenderness

Sharing our hopes

That one fine day

Our futures joining

Will make not two, but one

One name, one home

One life full sharing

Unless this be also dreaming

Nicolas

 

21.9.02 taunting

Dear Helen

We are parted

A long way distant

And you taunt me

With circling my hand around my pride

To slake my ardour

But think on this

I’d so much rather joy

Your mouth around me

Your tongue descending

And gentle movement making

Rising and falling

Your fingers curling

Encircling my twin orbs of being

Rousing me to fever pitch

And then in this fancy

I needs must seek you

Desperate in my longing

But we are parted

And a long way distant

 

22.9.02 my need for you

We are parted

A long way distant

And you taunt me

With circling my hand around my pride

To slake my ardour

But think on this

I’d so much rather joy

Your mouth around me

Your tongue descending

And gentle movement making

Rising and falling

Your fingers curling

Encircling my twin orbs of being

Rousing me to fever pitch

And then in this fancy

I needs must seek you

Desperate in my longing

But we are parted

And a long way distant

 

22.9.02 how nice

How nice it is

To read enthusiasm

Penned in your words

But tell me why

I pine at thinking

On them

And why my need for you is such a fire

Such desire:

I’d fain to hold you

In my bed, in my arms

Surrounding me completely

 

 

24.9.02 fair or fare?

Fair is the look you give me

Fare is the food you serve me

Fair is your hair

Fare is how you wear

Your life

And also the price you pay

On public transport

 

24.9.02 need

I despised myself

Because I wanted to be

Weak within your arms

This is not a manly thing

So to wish

Men should be big, manly, dominant

I just wanted to melt in you

Love me, Helen, I need your loving so

Love me, Helen, I need your enfolding so

Take me, Helen, into your heart

And rebuild me there

 

24.9.02 will we?

I want no kisses from you

But kisses merely giving

Want is demand

I demand nothing

I place my heart on a platter

Take me, if you wish

To share my being

Look into me, and searching

Seek if you can find

Some quality in me worthy

To joy your being

Oh, Helen, will I love you truly, one day?

Will we be joined?

And matched?

And harmony?

Will we love

Picturing your dreaming?

Will you reap

The harvest of your needing?

 

25.9.02 fools no more

better to be a pair of matching mules

than separated fools;

for foolishness is all I feel

bereft of you

I have no cause, no reason

If all alone

I have no time, no season

For pleasure, and on my own

My dream is your flesh beneath me

My need is your lips on mine

And in your arms to sleeping lie

And in my waking, why

To scan your smile

Shy, and encompassing

As we, across a breakfast table dear

face each the other, and sit so near

we can each the other touch

and know, in our knowing such

happiness

as might make the whole world smile

now fools no more