Schoolyard

Posted on March 27, 2019 by
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In dreams I return to the schoolyard
Call them nightmares perhaps
That is more fitting
For I never dream of gentler times
Of childhood friends
Indeed my mind wanders
To the fights and schemes and broken dreams
That formed me more than I can tell
Those days in the schoolyard like some hell
That burnishes and brands you
For all time

Again I am but an awkward teen
Caught somewhere in between
The life I would lead and the life I knew
To be the sum of all my choices
Childish, stupid, whining voices
In my head and in my heart
This proper place to start

So many years ago you would think
I would have let this litany go
All the victories of life
The vanquishing of adult foes
Should have let me know
How to let this go
But I remember who I was
The truth behind my adult eyes
And so I find with dull surprise
That in this schoolyard I reside
It cannot be denied

(c) Helen Valentina 2019

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Metropolis

Posted on March 20, 2019 by
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Image Credit: Kamomeen/Shutterstock.com

This vast city shimmers
Along the shoreline
Mirroring icy glittering beauty
Of a thousand lights
So beautiful tonight
I could almost believe
In a heaven somewhere
Far away
And yet like this
Metropolis

But underneath the beauty
Lurks the truths
We would deny
And they emerge here
By and by
The women who weep
The children who cry
And then it seems
Like a devil’s kiss
This faithless, lying
Metropolis

(c) Helen Valentina 2019

Posted in Air, Poetry | Tagged , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Wing Free

Posted on March 13, 2019 by
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Image Credit: Puda Vasilli/Shutterstock.com

Out of fire
He will wing so free
Victory

Born of flame
He will so inspire
Call his name

Through the air
He will blaze a path
None compare

Long apart
He will yet return
To your heart

(c) Helen Valentina 2019

Posted in Fire, Poetry | Tagged , , , , , | 5 Comments

Angel Beckons

Posted on March 6, 2019 by
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Image Credit: udrall/Shutterstock.com

What angel beckons me this night
By gentle, warming firelight?
That I might follow
Yes I might
For such a wondrous sight

The angels weeping I can hear
This sound so pitiful and clear
Could I give solace
Hold them near
And bring them human cheer?

The angels falling through the sky
Like blazing streams of fireflies
Would bid me follow
Hear their cries
That whole again they may arise

What angel beckons me this night
By gentle, warming firelight?
That I might follow
Yes I might
For such a wondrous sight

(c) Helen Valentina 2019

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Harbinger

Posted on February 27, 2019 by
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I see the harbinger of the days to come
The signs are so clear
And the taste of death
So rancid on my tongue
I have travelled too far
And learned too much to deny
The crow so dark
Against the winter sky
And the flecks of blood
In my eyes

I accept the message that he brings
On his wretched
Dark-born wings
And all the songs he sings
So beautiful to my ear
It may just be
The time of year
But Charon turns his boat to steer
And reach my shore
And I will not fight this
Anymore

Centuries deep the poets cry
Of all the secrets
We so craven here deny
Age takes us all
And none immune
To walk this crowded haunted room
I dreamt I fell
To heaven or to hell
I could not tell
And yet I knew it all too well

(c) Helen Valentina 2019

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Travelling In My Heart – Memory Part Three

Posted on February 20, 2019 by
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Image Credit: Sunny studio/Shutterstck.com

My mother would simply say ‘don’t start’
Father refused to play his part
And brother laughed and threw his quiet darts
A sun king growing in his domain
Everything fine within his name
And if I cried for justice here
There was no-one who would hear
The same refrain from year to year
This is where it starts
My travelling in my heart

A little girl could not describe
The rules and what they may prescribe
The poison that she must imbibe
To cede her soul’s terrain
To something hidden’s name
And if she sleeps that would be kind
There’s nothing lost she’s left behind
The memories one day unwind
Departure’s just the start
For travelling in my heart

Some other home so far away
Beyond the boundaries of day to day
And all the things the others say
Might somehow here explain
An unfamiliar stain
And one day if that home be found
Be it above or in the ground
Then even heaven would hear the sound
Of a life about to start
From travelling in my heart

(c ) Helen Valentina 2019

 

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The Old Town – Memory Part Twou

Posted on February 13, 2019 by
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Image Credit: FiledIMAGE/Shutterstock.com

What secrets lay beneath
The bright shining health
Of the old town?
The streets like arteries
Reaching to the township heart
A creature separate, apart
Drawing all its children in and down
The old town

Why do I shudder now
To see those wide, quiet streets
Of the old town?
The people mingle, come and go
And so the lifeblood flows
Now separate from me
I’m no longer there
I am apart
Not just another child never found
In the old town

So brief that time spent
And I so young
In the old town
These trickster memories
Invade my mind as parasites
I near recall, I almost might
But it’s Sirens that call me so I drown
In the old town

(c ) Helen Valentina 2019

 

Posted in Earth, Poetry | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

Photos – Memory Part One

Posted on February 6, 2019 by
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I’ve laid them out before me
Little pieces of forgotten days
So few were taken of me
So I recall the others best
Even as they were loved the best
It’s all that there could be

My bitterness has leeched out
Like dye running from a cloth
They’re just faces of ghosts
People once bright with life
Gone before me
It’s all that there could be

I’m searching in the images
For memories long gone
There’s nothing now to call upon
They are all dead
They are all gone
I cannot dial a telephone
To hear their version of the truth
And in any case
Would that be proof?
They always lied to me so
It’s all that there could be

This fading imagery
It’s all that there could be

(c ) Helen Valentina 2019

 

Posted in Air, Poetry | Tagged , , , , , | 7 Comments

Poised to Fly

Posted on January 30, 2019 by
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Image credit: Chris Hill/Shutterstock.com

Are you poised to fly?
You’ve waited so long
Patiently watching
Stalking your prey
Playing your games
That so few can see
Do you fly to oblivion
Or sweet victory
When you fly into history?

Are you poised to swoop
On the wretched below
Your plans are in place
All systems are go
And will we have justice
And sweet liberty
Do you fly to oblivion
Or sweet victory
When you fly into history?

© Helen Valentina 2019

 

Posted in Air, Poetry | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments

The Loneliness of Time

Posted on January 23, 2019 by
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Image Credit: Fabrizio Misson/Shutterstock.com

She was acquainted with the loneliness of time
And though she did not speak of it, nor
Dare to sing its saddest songs
She knew it all along
And on the seashore, at the pier
She can hear the seagulls veer
Through a sky that’s wracked with misery and delight

In separation she dwelled perhaps content but still she knew
Beyond herself lay others somewhere
She could not touch, and out of view
And this much is true she’d whisper at the seashore
As she wept
All the promises she’s broken and the secrets that she kept
Will never be a comfort in the wretched lonely night

It’s something perfect, something savage
Something ruthless but sublime
To be on a seashore at such twilight well acquainted
With the loneliness of time

© Helen Valentina 2019

Posted in Poetry, Water | Tagged , , , , , , | 9 Comments