Surprised? (Photo credit: SaZeOd)
I should be surprised
What you did was surprising
Or it would be
For anyone else
Instead I’m resigned
To the odd but habitual
Way you interact
With the world
No-one would believe
This story anyway
If I told it
Warts and all
So it’s just our secret
Though I’m not even sure
You understand the story
Or yourself, at all
(c) Helen Valentina 2013, All Rights Reserved
Closed door. (Photo credit: Errol ImagesMedia)
A closed door
Tiny fear
Blooms now in the pit
Of my stomach
Running through my blood
A chill
Of the unknown
Just a door
But what lies behind it?
Muffled sounds
Did I hear a cry?
Be still my heart
And give me courage
To turn the key
In the lock
And open
This closed door.
(c) Helen Valentina 2013, All Rights Reserved
Conjoined twin sisters from Nuremberg Chronicle (1493). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Symbiotic twins it seems
Too alike
Too similar backgrounds
Too common talents
Every twin must find
Their own identity
So it is
For you and me
Perhaps within alliances
Of this kind
Breeds the contempt
Of familiarity
Some unconscious
Separation
In the places
Where souls bleed
I care not
For competition
It’s too abstract
Too ill-defined
It is a race
That enslaves
Those who would be free
And so it is
For you and me
(c) Helen Valentina 2013, All Rights Reserved
Bridesmaids (Photo credit: pandameixiang)
At what point
Does the slave
To self-righteous
Selfishness
Arise?
At what point cry ‘Halt!’
‘Enough!!’
To a litany
Of absurd and costly
Ephemeral demands?
Do we question
The expectations
Of these rituals of choice
And the sorority
Of wedded sisterhood?
Always the bridesmaid
Never the bride
I say those who have been
Enslaved
Know it is honourable
Not to enslave
Arise, arise!
Remind your captor
That one day in their lives
Should not equate
To an eternity in yours.
(Inspired by reading a magazine article at the hairdressers about bridezillas, so no offence meant to those brides who are more moderate and reasonable in their demands 🙂 …)
(c) Helen Valentina 2013, All Rights Reserved
Brown Lady of Raynham Hall ghost photograph, Captain Hubert C. Provand. First published in Countrylife magazine, 1936 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Wraithlike
Half floating
Half gliding
Down spectral halls
The outline of
A memory
Ever so faintly
Ever so gently calls
Sorrowful
Dark mourning
Hands wringing
Suffused with strange light
A childless mother
Husbandless bride
Supplicant here
Weeps in sacrificial white
Hauntingly
Half spirit
Half demon
Cries blood tears to the sky
Always forgotten
Always forsaken
Unforgiven
And like clouds, passing by
(c) Helen Valentina 2013, All Rights Reserved
London Spin – Canon 550d (Photo credit: @Doug88888)
Spinning circles
Crowd my mind
In this maze
As paths unwind
Coloured masks
To hide the faces
Strange identities
Leave no traces
Shattered dreams
Nightmare view
Can’t see where
We’re going to
Rough cut image
Barely seen
Can’t remember
Where we’ve been
(c) Helen Valentina 2013, All Rights Reserved
Bubble bath
Sheer indulgence
Senses primed
by water and perfume
I recline
A momentary movie star
luxuriating
in my mind
A happy reverie,
simple dream
One by one
the bubbles burst
Last ones forming
moving pictures
on the water’s surface
Scattered remnants
Translucent
and flat
The last hurrah
As if to say
it is time
to pull the plug
and go
(c) Helen Valentina 2013, All Rights Reserved
Santi di Tito’s famous portrait of Niccolò Machiavelli, now residing in the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, Italy; headcrop. Deutsch: Niccolò Machiavelli; Ausschnitt aus dem Portrait von Santi di Tito. Македонски: Портрет на Николо Макијавели во функционерска облека. Санти ди Тито, 1500. Денес во Палацо Векио, Фиренца, Италија (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Your schemes
While hyperbolic
Still have an elegance
A symmetry
That may prove
Effective yet
You could surprise
The unwary
With the dissonance between
Your smile
And your intent
Just be careful
Not to over-estimate
The strategy
Of other players
And so fail to see
Them true
They may not even
Be playing
So may react
Different to expectations
Laying all your schemes
To waste
Leading all your plans
To irrelevance
And proving all your calculations
Incorrect
(c) Helen Valentina 2013, All Rights Reserved
Whirling dervish (Photo credit: Jez Page)
This whirling dervish
Mystical dance
A supplicant in
Graceful frenzy
In ecstatic communion
With the Beloved
Fiery sparks
Ignite the soul
In a glory of Oneness
Through every twirling round.
(c) Helen Valentina 2013, All Rights Reserved
I regularly get a taxi home from the shops on Saturday morning because although I only live about a ten minute walk away (which I always walk to the shops), coming home that way with heavy shopping bags makes it see a lot longer than ten minutes.
But I recognise it’s a short trip for a taxi driver who has been waiting, possibly for a while, for their next fare at the taxi rank. So I always get in and say, after giving the address, that I will give them a good tip given it is a short trip. And they usually say don’t worry but I insist because I do feel for them trying to get a decent income when they have little control over how many fares, let alone how good the fares are, that come along for them each day.
I should note for readers who don’t live in Australia that culturally in this country tipping is not an expected, or required, practice, but I was brought up to think about the value that people who provide such services to us have and how some appreciation for that is more than warranted.
Now when I say I give a good tip for this journey, I mean I give basically double the cost of the actual trip because it is so short, thereby making it more like the average type of fare in my city.
So today I got in the cab and said my usual spiel, and the taxi driver scowled at me and said: ‘It IS a short trip madam’
To which I replied ‘Yes, hence why I said I’d give a good tip, which by the way, I don’t have to do.’
He then drove me to my address – interestingly, having to ask me for directions for even this simple, short trip – and I gave him the customary 100% tip. And he didn’t even acknowledge this, let alone say thank you.
Now I don’t know, but this seemed very rude to me. After his first rude statement I could have been justified in no giving no tip at all but I kept to my word. But he didn’t even have the decency to acknowledge it in any form.
What do you think? Am I right to feel offended or am I being too precious about a small thing? I have been a bit out of sorts today anyway, so is this just a case of me having my grumpy-pants on or is my rant justified?
Like most people, I have a number of sides to me. The most interesting one probably emerges through my writing, hence this blog. I love to read, and also to write, and so this is a way to share both.
Gravatar image credit: (c) iStockphoto.com/Lobsterclaws
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