A strange pirouette
A moment of discordance
The dancer breaks ranks
This crawling instinct
Disturbs not the zen master’s
Meditation zone
On the brink of sleep
Sharp noise from another room
Wakes to alertness
Concentrate deeply
Even the song of sirens
Cannot you disturb.
© Helen Valentina 2013, All Rights Reserved
Herald of the archangel
The gift of prophecy
What dread words
Expel on your breath
In these terrible times?
Word of a birth
Or of hope
Or even the word of a god
Should he still speak to us
Lost in the tumult
That we create?
Guardian of the moon
Hovering pale creature
Shine your shimmering light
On a barren field
I thought I heard your name
Whispered on the wind
One morning as I woke
To the harsh light
Of secular, modern times
I am not the faithful
To claim this would be
A complete and broken lie
But if I listen carefully
Oh Gabriel
Will you speak to me?
(c) Helen Valentina 2013, All Rights Reserved
As I lay me down to sleep
Embracing secrets I would keep
From night’s high fortress would I leap
Should this fall prove not so steep
I wish to dream, I wish to fly
With dragon wings invade the sky
And taste such nectar e’er I die
Before this night has passed me by
In slumber’s chambers will I walk
Where strange delights entice and stalk
No invitation will I balk
To dance their dance or talk their talk
This nightshade promise is a kiss
Which may be danger, may be bliss
To run in fear now is remiss
I ask naught that they give me this
When morning wakes this world will fade
The texture lost within the shade
And all these vows that I have made
Demand a deeper debt repaid
As I lay me down to sleep
From tree tops high or rivers deep
From valleys low or mountains steep
I’ll seek again what I would keep.
(c) Helen Valentina 2013, All Rights Reserved
I’m sure that you feel
The death of your characters
To the harsh, unrelenting
Executive’s axe
Surely a new life
Awaits relocation
With only slight tweaking
To canon and facts?
Each of our heroes
Deserve more than three Acts!
On the Fringe we find Peter
Whose exceptional mind
Could well solve an American
Horror Story crime
Or give Elliot some Leverage
Sprouting righteous strong wings
As a cross over angel
In Supernatural’s time
With Sam, Dean and Castiel
A connection divine!
Should Jeff Winger’s zingers
Leave Community college
Or Abed and Troy’s
Morning show run aground
Then surely with Castle’s
Good humoured banter
Some natural pairings
Could yet be found
See clever pop references
Gleefully abound!
And what of Joss Whedon’s
Sci Fi bound cowboys
Who roam now unseen
On the great Firefly?
Surely that swagger
And talent with guns
Could help our dear Raylan
Keep all Justified?
We fans of these programs
Wear loyalty with pride!
The clever thief, Parker
Sophie, grifter sublime
Could fashion a new con
To help out the Arrow
In a fictional world
All it takes is a premise
And surely the canon
Cannot be that narrow
Our depth of devotion
Goes down to the marrow
Great beloved characters
Should still have a life
Not wait to unite
In a retirement band
Their spirits can still live
And gift us their talent
All they need is the writers
To give them a hand
Let’s call then, dear bloggers
United we stand!
No…really…I’m serious……
(c) Helen Valentina 2013, All Rights Reserved
Here is mystery
The moment when reason
retreats before belief
The point of elation
twisting into strange grief
See a penitent soul
falling like a thief
naked and vulnerable
to their knees
before some ineffable light
Here the Adept
and the Fool
both traverse the precipice
and willingly fall
into nothingness
or the loving arms of god
Whichever catches them first
Here is mystery
Where the journey ends
at its beginning
See the squalling infant
in the man
And the story unfolds
after the parable is told
I am nothing before
I am anything
And from being I return
To the void of nothing again
In this abyss
it is true
what the poet has said,
the only way out is through
And while I wrestle with doubt
the certainty of the waiting light
endures
Here is mystery
I am only my thought
and my love
Of what stuff is a soul
beyond this?
the Fools laughs at his folly
even as he seeks
as do I
Here is mystery
The moment when life
entwines its hands with death
The dance of the soul
Escaping on the breath
All the memories
I have struggled to forget
Sacrifice them all
for one moment of true belief
True belief
(c) Helen Valentina 2013, All Rights Reserved
Enduring now the setting of her sun
She feels this in her bones, embracing age
The warrior accepts her race is run
Although so many dreams have just begun
She sees her story told on history’s page
Enduring now the setting of her sun
Reflect now on the battles she has won
Through life developed wisdom of a sage
The warrior accepts her race is run
I honor all the kindnesses she’s done
Though caught within her generation’s cage
Enduring now the setting of her sun
She brought such truths together, made them one
Her poetry upon a simple stage
The warrior accepts her race is run
For Atropos the tapestry is spun
Take liberation’s grace, relinquish rage
Enduring now the setting of her sun
The warrior accepts her race is run
For my mother, a villanelle in memory of her passing years ago, and the bravery of a simple but profound life.
© Helen Valentina 2013, All Rights Reserved
Take my hand
Lead me to your heart
Let me rest
Take my heart
Let me lead you there
If you’ll come
Take this life
Simple offering
But profound
If we join
Greater than the parts
Is the sum
© Helen Valentina 2013, All Rights Reserved
We only examine
Truth we don’t like
We readily accept
The lies that we do
We look for veracity
In our depth of response
We think if we feel it
Then somehow it’s true
If we find ourselves anxious
We turn from the sight
Of evidence that lurks
In a world we’d deny
We search for the patterns
That affirm our belief
Re-arrange testimony
To a comfortable lie
But would we be better
Or somehow more strong
If we canvassed our views
In a more thorough way?
Is blindness, unseeing
A comfort or foe?
Is a night full of darkness
Somehow less than the day?
And even beyond this
Can we truly know
When such moments entrap us
In our favoured world view?
Oh would that we find it
That elusive, lost path
That leads not to denial
But embraces what’s true.
(c) Helen Valentina 2013, All Rights Reserved
Last night
I dreamt of your house
Like I was a ghost
Visiting its past
You were not there
Only the memories
Of the place itself
Distorted somehow
By the dream
What does it say
That my dreaming self
Remembers a house
Visited only infrequently
In our brief, intense acquaintance
But not its owner?
Does this betray
A deeper truth?
When we were together
You weren’t really there?
And still more than this
I didn’t even care?
I do recall you had a lovely house………
(c) Helen Valentina 2013, All Rights Reserved
A brittle man whose heart was closed
Took more from life than he supposed
By drawing to him beauty rare
To make for him a world he chose
His soul it seemed beyond repair
He treated no-one with such care
To pay back all he seemed to seek
To make his give and take more fair
With honeyed words she heard him speak
But still she sensed his ardour weak
To heartfelt honesty so blind
To passion cold, to bravery meek
If he sought love then he must find
A way to comfort and be kind
For when no feeling is aligned
The heart that pauses, falls behind.
© 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.
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