Old Friend

Old friend
I find myself with you again
I return as though to finish sentences
I started then forgot to complete

Old friend
It’s time to walk those boards again
To argue our polemics here once more
To debate, declare, compete

Old friend
You knew me like the veins you wear
Along your arms and hands so old, threadbare
And hope I know you too

Old friend
I know you more than you may care
But I will promise here and everywhere
I’ll forget it all for you

© Helen Valentina 2013, All Rights Reserved

Posted in Air, Poetry | Tagged , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Persuasion

Un café bombón

Un café bombón (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Such gentle words
Rippling like smoke
Against a rainy windowpane
I remember your face
Angled as you turned
To see the door open
And all the past return
Scattered like debris on the café floor

You pressed me for
A resolution or an answer
As the wind outside beat rhythm
With the sleet swept streets
You said ‘all we have of history
Is but our fractured memories
So let them go and come to me’
Unaware of your own poetry

The coffee dark and bitter
Resolved itself with chocolate slices
On trembling lips
And in that moment I would have yielded
To your wonderful persuasion
But the choice of time, location
Drew my eyes outside
To a tempest
And I knew
This was only but a mirror
But a promise of you

© Helen Valentina 2013, All Rights Reserved

Posted in Poetry, Water | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 11 Comments

A Pre-Emptive Apology To My WordPress Family….

Hi

From time to time I’ve said my work life is mad. Trust me, it is. But for the most part I had a schedule to allow me to blog regardless of the hours and stresses of my work life – an hour before I go to work, an hour on return, and catching up with a few more – luxurious by comparison – hours on the weekend.

The weekends allow me to write and schedule poems far ahead, so even while it looks like my visits to WordPress remain constant and frequent – given I’ve scheduled two poems per day now to the end of 2013 in my scheduler – in actual fact it probably masks a gradually decreasing amount of time I’ve had of late to be here.

And given some major changes and challenges in the sector I work in now, and my role in my organisation, those hours at work will get even longer as a regular thing till at least mid next year I think. I will still try to keep a schedule of being here during the week but it may end up being confined to the hour before work more often than not during the week given I often get home too late these days to log on.

The reason I’m saying all this is that I do my writing and posting/scheduling on weekends, so during the week I basically just respond to comments and read the many blogs I love to follow, liking and commenting wherever I can. So if my working week time is limited, my interaction with the community becomes more limited.

So I just want to say – if it feels I’m neglecting any of you I promise I’m not. I will try to keep up with all you wonderful work as best and as frequently as I can – it’s the most amazing enrichment of spirit in an otherwise work-obsessed world for me – and I’ll try to keep my original visiting schedule wherever I can but if I fall by the wayside a bit more than usual over the next 6-8 months please bear with me. I promise I shall be with everyone in spirit!!!

I need a TARDIS…and the 10th Doctor…that’s basically the size of it. If someone can send me those, then I’ll be more visible – if not, please forgive me in advance!!

TARDIS Mk VII

TARDIS Mk VII (Photo credit: Rooners Toy Photography)

Cheers

Helen V

Posted in Air, Conversation | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 34 Comments

Multitudes

Masks

Masks (Photo credit: mayakamina)

‘I am large, I contain multitudes’ Walt Whitman

The concept of the singular
Is foreign to you
Your personalities are so multiple
You hardly knew
The impact of your lack
Of linearity
The way the others round you yearned
For stasis and simplicity

You would be a greater god
Not just a man
Within you every ebb and flow
A whole wingspan
An artist to your soul
Just perversity
You searched for more to fill your lack
Within the heart of me

But you are just a thief
A canvas so cold
You have too many secrets
Stories yet untold
‘I’m legion’ you may cry
In all sincerity
But instead you are confusion
It’s all you’ll ever be

© Helen Valentina 2013 All Rights Reserved

Posted in Fire, Poetry | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Frozen Sea

English: A monk ice skating on a frozen river.

English: A monk ice skating on a frozen river. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

‘A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us’ Franz Kafka

This bloodless fluid in stasis
Ancient ocean frozen like a lake
for lighthearted ice skating
in the depths of winter

I am but a surface, still
to be written on as skates
would slice my brittle surface
Never knowing the deep, within

Can I write of what is underneath
Simmering like a pot about to boil
awaiting its moment
to arise as leviathan and awake
freed from the slumber of the ice?

Take this axe to me now
Rend the truth from my solid denial
On the page witness blood and pain
and deep aspects so finely etched

While my frozen fortress reigns
I am a liar and a fool
A thief in your night, but open wounds
through words are laid bare
and the ice will break and thaw
like freedom on the first morning
of Spring

© Helen Valentina 2013 All Rights Reserved

Posted in Poetry, Water | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 12 Comments

Morality

Français : Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891) en 1872....

Français : Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891) en 1872. Photographie conservée à la Bnf. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

‘Morality is the weakness of the mind’ Arthur Rimbaud

A worthy gift for gods
Too drunk on their immortality
A tribute as a delicacy
Of all of man’s fragility
Dishonour of morality
The weakness of the world

I lay this at their feet
Divine their deep perversity
Indolent depravity
By far their sense of gravity
Is lost within the pit of me
The weakness of my soul

My ethics bound and broken
This shroud of dark finality
They laugh before the gall of me
To think from consequence I’m free
That evil could be liberty
The weakness of my mind

© Helen Valentina 2013 All Rights Reserved

Posted in Air, Poetry | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 16 Comments

Perception

Perceptions

Perceptions (Photo credit: Ezu)

What I see
Is not what you mean me to see
What I hear
Is not what you say
What I feel
Is a better barometer
For the things
You would desire, prefer

You’re a ghost
Living in human bones
You love most
What you can’t hold
Artist paints
A world that they alone see
And the person
They most desire to be

Are those flames
Flickering round your head
And what names
Do your angels own?
I perceive
The flaw beneath the weave
May you grieve
That I’ll never believe

© Helen Valentina 2013 All Rights Reserved

Posted in Fire, Poetry | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 13 Comments

Me and Billy the Kid

Yay!! Briana Vedsted’s new book is now available on amazon – get your copy and enjoy!! 🙂 🙂

Briana (Vedsted) Atkisson's avatarWhen I Became an Author

Me and Billy the Kid has officially been released! Buy it here on amazon.com!

#1

View original post

Posted in Poetry | Leave a comment

Alumni

Saint Anselm College's Alumni Hall, built in 1...

Saint Anselm College’s Alumni Hall, built in 1889, it is the current administration building. This image was taken in April of 2009 on the Quad just a few hours after sunrise (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Do you think they know our secrets, as
we gather in this room, this forum of contrived memory
as all bonhomie, all networks bloom? Do you think
they know the truth of us, this alumni born of hell?
And should the artifice suffice, is there reason now to tell?

Youth was an excuse as I recall the days, when we gathered
for our rituals and all the people played
Wealth and riches followed in the wake
of what may be a great mistake
but gathering here we yet partake,
in honours, awards and praise

I’ll remember what we did as you will surely join with me,
but we’ll toast the others here around and will not let them see
The devil’s alumni gathered like three witches round their pot,
remembering the price we paid and all the victims got
And we can fool ourselves it’s just a dream and so it matters not,
but I’ll remember what we did and why this is our lot
I’ll remember everything and you will join with me,
and we’ll know we’re the alumni so we never can be free.

© Helen Valentina 2013 All Rights Reserved

Posted in Fire, Poetry | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Under One Roof

Family Portrait - Montreal 1963

Family Portrait – Montreal 1963 (Photo credit: Mikey G Ottawa)

I have no need of evidence
I have no need of proof
I live with love and providence
All found beneath one roof

My delight is in the simple things
The laughing of a child
Scarves and shawls and wedding rings
All memories compiled

Immune to all life’s miseries
To pain I am aloof
For all the wondrous joys for me
Are here under one roof

© Helen Valentina 2013 All Rights Reserved

Posted in Earth, Poetry | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 11 Comments