Three times your name
Three times the same
Only difference
Was the game
First watched from afar
Second casual and bizarre
Third a foreign, twisted star
Three times one heart
Three ways apart
Different endings
Different start
Three times your name
Three times the same
God forbid I ever find
The next player for this game…..
(c) Helen Valentina 2013, All Rights Reserved
I turn my back
to the approaching storm
I wrap my friends
in clothes secure and warm
And here I wait
a still uncertain dawn
The lightening forces
me to gravely smile
Move weary feet
another step or mile
While thunder’s bellow
follows me awhile
My journey taken
here at any cost
must reach its goal
before the winter’s frost
Or else my only world
will be forsaken, lost
I turn my back
to the relentless night
Sharpen my sword
till it is gleaming bright
And pray the dawn
will set the tumult right
And pray the dawn
brings victory in sight.
(c) Helen Valentina 2013, All Rights Reserved
In this nation’s capital
The streets are wide
And empty
Comfort, structure and design
Happily meet
To hide the desperation within.
All is hierarchy and status
And form
Parliament the lone sentinel
On the hill
Surveying all below
In this nation’s capital
Lie secrets we would know
So beautiful in autumn
Before winter lays its cowl
Across frost covered pathways
A riot of colour
Speaks of hidden life and love
Born of some darker, older source
They say the residents there
Are not in touch
With reality
Yet little do they know or care
This city’s heart beats
Just like theirs
Just like theirs.
(c) Helen Valentina 2013, All Rights Reserved
Momentary thought
Reflection in the mirror
A stranger, not me
In the world of dreams
Do we wear our own faces
Or other strange masks?
Expressions I show
Calibrate hidden feelings
I will not betray
Can we even know
The face we had before birth
Which may follow death?
Is there some moment
In transition to be born
Form becomes secure?
Or is all just change
The thought of soul, fleeting lie
Our identity?
(c) Helen Valentina 2013, All Rights Reserved
Gestalt mind
Possibility
Of the hive
Patterned thought
Take the next great leap
Future bound
Telepath
All the circuitry
So alive
Three as one
Here new trinity
Can be found.
(c) Helen Valentina 2013, All Rights Reserved
The serpent speaks
Of knowledge
Twined around this Tree
Temptation here
To simply know
The heart of mystery
And is this wisdom
Given here
To somehow set us free?
Once innocence is lost
Tis gone forever
You cannot wish away
Something you have known
So is it strength and liberty
That from this Tree is grown?
Or with heavy heart
Must we embrace
A guilt we must atone?
Just following up on a suggestion I do a ‘sequel’ to my Tree of Life poem.
(c) Helen Valentina 2013, All Rights Reserved
I ache
Within
Stricken with a hunger
I cannot name
On the tip of my tongue
It tantalizes
A memory of the lost
Do you haunt me still?
You seemed so gone
I blessed the relief
Found an ordinary life
To remember and reclaim
But in the shadows
You remain
If only in the wake
Of remembrance’s dreams
Perhaps it is just
Revenge I seek
For what you wrought
For all the sickness
Riddled through desire
See you fall before me finally
Admit the crime
Perhaps that alone
Would set me free
Or this ache
This stretch within
Is just to know
Finally know why
Counterbalanced by this certain
Cruel knowledge that I have
That neither now nor in the next life
Will I ever
Have that chance
(c) Helen Valentina 2013, All Rights Reserved
Feeling confused
Conflicted
This maze
Is a labyrinth
Hiding a minotaur
Would Ariadne’s thread
Lead me through?
So unsure
Of where I should land
Loyalties are complex
No truth is clear
I don’t even know
If I represent light
Or the dark
And in any case
Is that always just
A matter of perspective?
Are my intentions
What they seem to me
Or a clever ruse
To hide my own agenda
Even from my eyes?
I just want to float
Above this all
Yet I am dragged down
By others’ intent
And perhaps, in the end
Even by my own
In the underworld
Orpheus looked back
as do I
Curiosity undoes us
In the end
So perhaps it is best
Not to know.
(c) Hele Valentina 2013, All Rights Reserved
Terrifying darkened room
Counterpointed by
This dazzling stage
Shadowed figures
Seemingly faceless
Await in a row
Nerves are electricity
Susseration under your skin
How is it that
Your throat is so dry?
All your offerings
Seeming to slip through your hands
To lie at your feet
Like the betrayal
Of a trusted friend
Still yourself
And focus!
This is but one moment
In a string of moments
No more no less
An opportunity
To express
To be
The flow of words
And melody
Are wings to lift you
Away from this dread place
For a second forget
This audience
And their implacable
Unknown judgement
Palms sweating
You complete this journey
Await a verdict
That may be merciful, kind
Or celebratory
Or somehow in
Denial’s simplicity
Break your heart
Were you right then,
Were you right
That you can sing
You can be?
And this could be perfect
This could be beautiful
This could be seen?
All your life
Pinpointed in one moment
A butterfly
Emerging nervous
From its cocoon
Unsure if it can fly
Oh beloved!
You can fly
Fly above us all!
(c) Helen Valentina 2013, All Rights Reserved
Classic story told
Ancient warrior turned god
of the darkest kind
Blood now is the life
Pain etched on the palest face
driven by this thirst
Perfect allegory
perhaps, of a need profound,
banishing all light
Once proud man of faith
focussed cruelty and rage
on the battlefield
Down the centuries
stalks this strange and restless ghost
to fair England’s shores
Oh Wallachian prince!
Is it strange to see your fate
turned to dark romance?
Or your legacy
tempered by the years that pass
to a lighter hue?
You who raged your truth
in your bloodied purge of all?
Mercy so bereft
Surely still the fear
that attended word of you
should somehow remain?
We forget the past
In our dance of deep desire
Lose essential truth
Let us see the signs,
this relentless legacy
in its tragic end.
(c) Helen Valentina 2013, All Rights Reserved
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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