helenvalentina

Despair

Posted on February 1, 2013 by Helen

Despair

Engulfing terror
The axe falling
Bereft of all hope
Stunned

Posted in Poetry, Water | Tagged dark, despair, fear, grief | 2 Comments

Anne Boleyn

Posted on January 31, 2013 by Helen

Eyes raised to the sky
Quiet dignity
Breathe your last
From here for centuries
poets, philosophers,
readers of history
will debate
the merit or the tragedy
of this one terrible moment

None us us knowing you
but for your letters
And the strange reports of those
with their own agendas
and truths

Entrapped forever
Some say
your ghost lingers still,
unable to sever
the weight and hold of these ties
These chains

Guilt and innocence so complex
Implying choice
where you, perhaps, had none
Ambitions of families,
desire of a king
The intricate, delicate
deadly machinations of the court

This bloodied end
No justice in this
A womb unable
to produce the life desired
So, in failing this
forfeited yours

Yet you birthed a great queen
Unearthed a new spirituality
Conquered a king
For a moment

Then fell
quiet and desolate
Your tiny, elegant neck
exposed to the executioner

What say you, Anne Boleyn?
To the blind judgement of time
all loves foresaken?
Where you found no mercy
not a drop, for you
remains any in your heart?

Posted in Air, Poetry | Tagged Anne Boleyn, dark, death, history, loss, tragedy, Tudor | 4 Comments

Alchemical Chess

Posted on January 31, 2013 by Helen

‘In chess
Someone must play
The dark pieces’
she said

It struck me
as a revelation
of a deeper, sadder truth

Through irritation
the pearl is formed
Through adversity
strength and honor shine
Through age
wisdom may emerge

What is growth
without struggle
But what is struggle
Without the opponent?
Both tied together
in a dance of necessity
All judgement requires
a consideration
of choices taken, of intent

Without challenge
no choice
But without challenge
no suffering

What gods built this
unholy paradox?
All growth is painful
in its way
and yet
those that inflict pain
seldom grow
Only those that endure
are refined

If you play the dark chess
you are necessary
and damned for it
in strange, small ways
made, like everyone
only from your choices

We are all of us lost
For we all are free to choose
But did you make your choice
Or did your choice make you?

Posted in Air, Poetry | Tagged alchemy, chess, choice, dark, Musings, Philosophy, Spiritual | 2 Comments

Shock Freefall

Posted on January 30, 2013 by Helen

There was a moment
I stood transfixed
trying to assimilate
what I had heard

Could I process this
revelation?
Moreover
could I believe?

The balance,
so complex and deceiving
Would I even know,
be able to see?

Something
so quiet and stealthy
which I desperately don’t
want to believe

Give me blindness
from reality
If only for a moment,
let me breathe

Stunned so deep now
I’m lost in free fall
but with nothing
on my face betrayed

I’ll play my cards
even closer to my chest now
and I’ll wait
for further word

If the circumstance
requires this of me
even I
will fall on my sword

Just give me a moment
of sweet disbelief
A pre-emptive surrender
before the fall.

Posted in Air, Poetry | Tagged acceptance, belief, choice, dark, denial, Philosophy, shock, truth | 5 Comments

Fairy Tale

Posted on January 30, 2013 by Helen

A poem based on a dream I once had……………..

A wicked man once held his love
Within his house of dreams
Where walls were doors and doors were walls
Was nothing as it seems?
And for her, in place of joy
Were only tears and screams

He cared not if her fear was great
His loved breathed as a curse
He thrived on holding her so tight
That each choice trapped her worse
And each perception she would trust
Turned quick to its reverse

Confined within the house she sought
The best place to begin
To find the doors that hid as walls
To lead her out, not in
Yet every passage that she found
Just further led within

A hero waited near to find
The moment to surprise
This wicked man, by his approach
With hooded cloak, disguised
But yet the wicked man divined
The truth behind these lies

The wicked man took up his knife
And sought the hero’s lair
He stabbed him in the dead of night
He found him unprepared
For wickedness would not release
Such goodness in his care

Yet see that killing this poor boy
Came dearly at a cost
For walls as doors and doors as walls
Will not confuse a ghost
By murder then, see evil lose
The treasure valued most

The hero ghost went to his love
And quickly quelled her doubt
His spirit shone a greater light
To prove what he’s about
And hand in hand the girl and ghost
Divined the best way out

A wicked man once held his love
In his house beyond compare
Perception clouding every room
A perfect captor’s lair
But without love the charm must break
And would not keep her there

A wicked man once foresook love
For possession cold as ice
And so in doing sealed his fate
And brought to him the price
Of loneliness and lost despair
Entrapped within his vice.

Posted in Air, Poetry | Tagged dark, Dreams, fairy tale, ghost, Love | 2 Comments

Transition

Posted on January 29, 2013 by Helen

At what point is one beginning
At what point the other end
The singer from the singing
The lover from the friend?

The moment of elation
From the knowledge of the fall
The victorious jubilation
From the rising to the call?

At what point the law of reason
Extricated from the heart
Is there ever true a season
That distinguishes its start?

Winter bows itself to spring
Just as night reveals the morn
So what adult do we bring
By a new child that is born?

Posted in Air, Poetry | Tagged creation, Philosophy, Spiritual, time, truth | 9 Comments

I wait now so impatient on the day
When all my joys and sorrows can unite
And all that I endeavour now, or say
Eschews this darkness here, embraces light
I wandered once within these halls so bleak
I sought to find my strength through conquering fear
And all the half-truths, hidden I would speak
Obscured the deeper truths that I revere
But in denial find no guard from pain
And in pretense no armoury is found
I saw then that the freedom I would gain
Could only through self-knowledge here abound
So through my shadow side may I embrace
The balance that is sometimes known as grace.

Posted in Air, Poetry | Tagged acceptance, Philosophy, self-knowledge, sonnet, Spiritual, truth | 2 Comments

Where’s my Mr Darcy?

Posted on January 28, 2013 by Helen

Where’s my Mr Darcy then?
That’s what I want to know
That shy and brooding countenance
That deftly hidden glow?

Jane Austen knew a thing or two
Of civility and charm
Of poetry and pretty words
That leave a girl disarmed

Where are those brave and secret deeds?
Where dignity and honor?
When all else in the world would throw
Their judging eyes upon her?

I’d dance the dances that she tells
I’d brave those stately halls
If only someone Darcy-esque
Would kindly make the call

I know it seems in retrospect
Jane Austen’s world does shine
With something deeper of romance
Than I can find in mine.

Where’s my Mr Darcy then
Where romance pure and grand?
The only thing I know for sure
It’s nowhere near to hand.

Posted in Poetry, Water | Tagged Humor, Jane Austen, Mr Darcy, Pride and Prejudice, Romance, television | 9 Comments

Ode to Freddie Mercury

Posted on January 28, 2013 by Helen

Watching a television documentary
On my first favourite band
I am reminded
Stunned once more
Before the artistry and poetry
Of this mercurial man indeed

The generosity they mention
Was always in his glittering eyes
But more the beauty of a voice
That comes not once a generation
But once a century
Freddie Mercury

Hearing again of his demise
For a moment heartbroken
Over someone I never knew
I recall playing
‘Who wants to live forever?’
On repeat
The day of the sad news

Now more than two decades later
These passed by so quickly
I return to the feeling in an instant
Tear stained eyes
His achingly beautiful face
His glorious, incandescent voice

Why are the Greats so often
Shadowed by tragedy
Stolen from us too soon?
What bitter, jealous god decrees
Only this much, and no more?
See his friends speak
Of vultures circling his death
When all we should have seen
Was a life glorified

It breaks my heart
This breaks my heart
Sheer beauty taken prematurely
And we are left only to wonder
What treasure may yet have been ours
Had he been allowed
To stay.

Vale Freddie
Your legacy lives on.