The Name Helen Poem by Barry Van Asten

The utter darkness, the hopeless pull,
Spun through brains and approaching dawns...
There I stood, like stone Saint John,
Devoured by the night's dark assumption.

And coming in from time, I awoke
To the white walls and half words
That shifted to and fro between us
In the tiled glow of the hospital wards:
This is all of it, I thought, and I have seen
The hollows of your language and the wickedness there.

But I believe in her, in this wilderness,
Though my soul could harbour no Gudrun:
My veins - streams of poison,
My heart - swims with passion,
My brain - the unknown god
That dwells without span or spoken reason.

We are towers that reach into the sky,
Each sinking into different hells.
And if you knew, that within my frame,
Packed away into little cells,
I am the hills and meadows that wander
Far away and touch no one.
Then my God, think of me and do not shout,
For it is something fearful that brings me here.

I am the years and I am alone,
Like an invisible phoenix in memorial glass -
I rise only to find your name and nothing else.

Her dual nature, fixed with the stars,
And timeless, I ache for the meaning of love,
But life is impossible and too cold to stay
In the vain hope of knowing its indifferent ways.

I heard the golden throng of woman
Give musical magic to her name, and then

She fell to the fear of the wretched blue silence
And shut away all hope of change:
My eyes won't open on this world, she said,
My sorrows grow great where shadows remain.
But it's no use my speaking from the heart,
I can never release the hurt inside that I feel.
And an angel stooped near to her and whispered:
We have drank our souls dry and come through,
Time now for you to live again.

But night of many wonders - birth,
Is revolved along the dim-worn waves;
Concealed by the fringed mystery that rages...
You're wasting your time in meaningless things,
(And frightening me) for I am dumb;
Locked away...rotting away...
Paled by the war-weary turn of the moon.

I heard the lonely song of man
Echo over the haunted lawns, now forgotten.

But we cannot return, no, nor look back
Upon the past and all that's been said before.
There is too much dark matter come between us
And afterall, I must name things, always name...
For evermore.

And these hopeless lips that will never kiss
Or speak another name but this,
Will forever be still, though inwardly uttering:
This despair within our hearts is drear,
Yet we said nothing, damned nothing!

For something ceased in her dimension
Like so many shapes in the frozen waste.
Her sweet tones, now dull beneath the boughs
Said nothing more than dreams could say
When I realised the adventure was too far away.