Topic 16 of 53: Helen Huth's poetry
Thu, Mar 19, 1998 (19:14) |
Paul Terry Walhus (terry)
Helen Huth was a high school classmate of mine who died
in a car crash on the bridge over the Mississippi River
in Cape Girardeau Missouri.
Her poetry silenced, I felt she had a promising future.
I'm posting whatever bits and pieces and can muster up,
mostly forwarded by Merle Busch, our science teacher at
Bayless High, here.
We'll also be building http://www.helenhuth.com
I can't express how sad I have been at her loss over the years.
23 responses total.
Topic 16 of 53 [poetry]: Helen Huth's poetry
Response 1 of 23: Paul Terry Walhus (terry) * Thu, Mar 19, 1998 (19:20) * 47 lines
Je - 63
A some what poem
I.
A somewhat fleshless
Bird.
in a somewhat
fleshless cage of
ribs,
in a somewhat
fleshless cage of
cat,
in a somewhat
fleshless cage of
world,
has died.
II.
Somewhat a pity
whatsome friends will do
some say -
"what provacation?"
"Some hunger" - say I
"He
was somewhat wrong!" - some say
Say I - "To
hunger -?"
"To love" some say . . . . . . . ("yes . . . . . " - say I)
- "to love . . . then some what . . . . . .
leave the
cat .......that way!"
hel.
Topic 16 of 53 [poetry]: Helen Huth's poetry
Response 2 of 23: Paul Terry Walhus (terry) * Thu, Mar 19, 1998 (19:24) * 24 lines
Don't touch me....
I am a rose
A bloody, green rose
I look at you, mouth open, and laugh!
Where are your petals and your leaves????
don't touch me....
I hae thorns and I am a rose
So you were formed of mud.....Black, inferior
you are below me
What you hate me????? Yes...But
Don't touch me....
I am a rose
Topic 16 of 53 [poetry]: Helen Huth's poetry
Response 3 of 23: Charlotte (Charlotte) * Thu, Mar 19, 1998 (19:33) * 3 lines
I feel the loss, and I never even knew her.
Thanks for sharing these, Terry.
Topic 16 of 53 [poetry]: Helen Huth's poetry
Response 4 of 23: Paul Terry Walhus (terry) * Thu, Mar 19, 1998 (20:27) * 6 lines
In another topic here, Jane Hirshfield wrote:
"Her poems? I will never know them,
though they are the ones I most need."
Topic 16 of 53 [poetry]: Helen Huth's poetry
Response 5 of 23: Paul Terry Walhus (terry) * Thu, Mar 19, 1998 (20:32) * 29 lines
ESSE
spinx-like
sitting
and
watching
thelittlepeoplerun
Stole-faced
NodDing oCaasionalLy
avoiding the GLARE
thatlittlepeopleoften
STARE
Oh you museum piece
of a heart
archaic-relic
existence laughs at you
a paper crown
a purple rag
and
t
i
m
e
Topic 16 of 53 [poetry]: Helen Huth's poetry
Response 6 of 23: Paul Terry Walhus (terry) * Thu, Mar 19, 1998 (20:34) * 13 lines
An ethereal love floats just beyond my reach.
ever beyond my reach.
My lonely heart longs and lunges for it's tenderness
but it is just beyond my reach,
ever beyond my reach.
(Inspired by "Death Takes a Holiday")
Topic 16 of 53 [poetry]: Helen Huth's poetry
Response 7 of 23: Paul Terry Walhus (terry) * Thu, Mar 19, 1998 (20:49) * 1 lines
Topic 16 of 53 [poetry]: Helen Huth's poetry
Response 8 of 23: Stacey Vura (stacey) * Thu, Mar 19, 1998 (21:49) * 4 lines
Thank you Paul.
I understand much better now.
I can see and feel the e.e. cummings inspiration
and can hear the passion
Topic 16 of 53 [poetry]: Helen Huth's poetry
Response 9 of 23: nick a'hannay (pmnh) * Thu, Mar 19, 1998 (22:25) * 5 lines
some of the most beautiful stuff i've read in
a long while... really enjoyed this stuff...
(and empathize with your loss... it never
really gets better... they just sorta get
further away, but it feels the same)...
Topic 16 of 53 [poetry]: Helen Huth's poetry
Response 10 of 23: Paul Terry Walhus (terry) * Thu, Mar 19, 1998 (22:35) * 37 lines
Dear Mr. Busch
Miles and miles, of miles and miles of
ageless, dust deep, lines of directions
of many directionless,
shadows of shells, of we who
are for ever, thralls of we
who are never.
the motionless wind screams wae-sucks
in the deaf ear as it races by to
reach the distance of what it has passed,
carrying the message, of prophecy, of the
vent of forever, the
horizon of endless of redness of mist of
undefined departure heralds a disturbance,
of always, of dust that rises
and gathers and stagnates forever ahead
of empty, searching, graying,
infinitely hollow, sightless eyes,
the shadow is drawn and stumbles, and
follows as always seeking to reach
what it has become,
this, as all other,
(existance?) of humanity
evoked to a sameness of hope of
fulfillment by the sign,
climbs the ever present, withering
barren propagator of all overshadowing,
Iscariote tree, and lunges and peers,
and hungers for, and hungers with,
the wake of the swirling, clinging, dust
ladden trale of the illusive
wandering jew, of slef of
the candy shop or the corner store, the leaves that fall
and the men that snore, the birds that sing, and the man
that thinks is
Topic 16 of 53 [poetry]: Helen Huth's poetry
Response 11 of 23: Paul Terry Walhus (terry) * Thu, Mar 19, 1998 (22:38) * 15 lines
The wild rose blushes quietly as the rain steals in
and kisses it tenderly.
The tiny crystalline drops shimmer in the innocent
half-glow of dusk.
Even now in the sudden, sulky shower the sun pears
over the sloping curve of the earth to whisper
'Good eve' and then glide away to smoke up a grey-blue
night.
Topic 16 of 53 [poetry]: Helen Huth's poetry
Response 12 of 23: Paul Terry Walhus (terry) * Thu, Mar 19, 1998 (22:40) * 15 lines
Butterfly
Lithe and beautiful with silken stroke
the fine web of a dream cools the air.
Rise and descend,
rise and descend with narcotic side affect
The kingdom of color kaliedescopes in a lazy, hazy
dream of golden summer and blue.
Topic 16 of 53 [poetry]: Helen Huth's poetry
Response 13 of 23: Paul Terry Walhus (terry) * Thu, Mar 19, 1998 (22:44) * 3 lines
I'm really praying that Merle can find the other 150 lost poems of Helen
Huth that he gave to her sister before she died. That's the rest of the
tragedy that befell the Huth family.
Topic 16 of 53 [poetry]: Helen Huth's poetry
Response 14 of 23: Charlotte (Charlotte) * Fri, Mar 20, 1998 (01:25) * 1 lines
Terry, What was the year that Helen died?
Topic 16 of 53 [poetry]: Helen Huth's poetry
Response 15 of 23: Paul Terry Walhus (terry) * Fri, Mar 20, 1998 (07:19) * 2 lines
I believe it was '65, but I'll find out from Merle.
Topic 16 of 53 [poetry]: Helen Huth's poetry
Response 16 of 23: Paul Terry Walhus (terry) * Sat, Mar 21, 1998 (01:20) * 47 lines
CURIOSITY
may have killed the cat; more likely
the cat was just unlucky, or else curious
to see what death was like, having no cause
to go on licking paws, or fathering
litter on litter of kittens, predictably.
Nevertheless, to be curious
is dangerous enough. To distrust
what is always said, what seems,
to ask odd questions, interfere in dreams,
leave home, smell rats, have hunches
does not endear him to those doggy circles
where well-smelt baskets, suitable wives, good lunches
are the order of things, and where prevails
much wagging of incurious heads and tails.
Face it. Curiosity
will not cause him to die-
only lack of it will.
Never to want to see
the other side of the hill,
or;that improbable country
where living is an idyll
(although a probable hell)
would kill us all.
Only the curious
have, if they live, a tale
worth telling at all.
Dogs say he loves too much, is irresponsible,
is changeable, marries too many wives,
deserts his children, chills all dinner tables
with tales of his nine lives
Well, he is lucky. Let him be
nine-lived and contradictory,
curious enough to change, prepared to pay
the cat price, which is to die
and die again and again,
each time with no less pain.
A cat minority of one
is all that can be counted on
to tell the truth. And; what he has to tell
on each return from hell
is this: That dying is what the living do
That dying is what the loving do,
and that dead dogs are those who do not know
that hell is where, to live, they have to go.
Topic 16 of 53 [poetry]: Helen Huth's poetry
Response 17 of 23: Paul Terry Walhus (terry) * Sat, Mar 21, 1998 (01:36) * 18 lines
Truth and Wisdom sat together on a cold, bare rock
in the middle of a silent ocean; arguing . . .
they quarreled as to which was the most important
to mankind in order to instill peace . . .
Truth said that she was the most important . . "For
peace, there must be genuine, truthful correspond-
ence of reality between nations."
Yet, Wisdom maintained he was the supreme require-
ment . . . "To obtain a tranquil and secure world;
learning, wisdom, and the ability to judge all things
soundly are essential."
Truth and Wisdom are sitting together on a cold, bare
rock in the middle of a silent ocean; arguing . . .
Topic 16 of 53 [poetry]: Helen Huth's poetry
Response 18 of 23: Paul Terry Walhus (terry) * Sat, Mar 21, 1998 (01:40) * 9 lines
These nine poems are all I received. There are, as I said, at least 150
more that are "lost" and might be retrieved someday. The only one Merle
knows for sure is authentic is the one titled "A Somewhat Poem". Merle
doesn't know about the others, but he doesn't know many people who have
sent him poems. They're not his poems.
Helen told Merle in one of her letters that some of her work would be
printed in the Cape Girardeau Literary Magazine. Merle's going to try
and find out the particulars and mail them to me.
Topic 16 of 53 [poetry]: Helen Huth's poetry
Response 19 of 23: Paul Terry Walhus (terry) * Sat, Mar 21, 1998 (01:43) * 3 lines
I can think of no more fitting way to celebrate the fourth anniversary of
the Spring than to publish the poetry of Helen Huth and share it with the
world.
Topic 16 of 53 [poetry]: Helen Huth's poetry
Response 20 of 23: nick a'hannay (pmnh) * Sat, Mar 21, 1998 (03:26) * 4 lines
very beautiful, promising stuff, terry... she had a fascinating
mind, it is evident, and a singular, refreshing point of view...
and an amazing feel for verse... hope you can bring us a lot more
of her work...
Topic 16 of 53 [poetry]: Helen Huth's poetry
Response 21 of 23: Paul Terry Walhus (terry) * Mon, Apr 13, 1998 (06:20) * 5 lines
Merle writes that he cannot find the 150 lost poems in his attic. So
he's making one last desparate atttempt to get in touch with Helen's
deceases sisters husband to see if he might have them. One slim
remaining hope that they might be found. Otherwise, the above poems will
remain as the only remnants of Helen's substantial body of work.
Topic 16 of 53 [poetry]: Helen Huth's poetry
Response 22 of 23: Flidais (Flidais) * Thu, Apr 16, 1998 (23:53) * 1 lines
oh wow....I love them all....what a tragic loss of an amazing mind...yes, there's a definite e.e. cummings influence which is, of course, right up my alley.....thank you so much Terry for sharing these and for making the effort to ensure that death does not silence this incredible voice
Topic 16 of 53 [poetry]: Helen Huth's poetry
Response 23 of 23: Paul Terry Walhus (terry) * Mon, Jul 6, 1998 (09:50) * 1 lines
No word yet on the lost poems.
poetry conference 
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