Storm Season

Lightning storm over the Caribbean

Lightning storm over the Caribbean (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

You are storm season
Electricity crackling
On a dry, grey afternoon sky
Distant rumbling
Of thunder
Like chariots passing by
You are storm season

You are lightning striking
Lone tree hill
An exclamation point as highlight
Terrible truth
Rising within you
We’re all lost in this night
You are lightning striking

You are devastation
After the flood
Ravaged the townships so far below
Miserable knowledge
Known far too late
As your true meaning came to be known
You are devastation

© Helen Valentina 2013 All Rights Reserved

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

Apprentice

Magician's hand

Magician’s hand (Photo credit: mWei2010)

He said ‘you’ll be my apprentice to darkness and light’
He festered in hallways dripping sigils, with flames burning bright
And I thought I’d surrender, believed that I might
Learn of secrets so hidden, so lost in this night

He spoke of such craft honed through years of lost learning
The eros of magic and the dread power of yearning
I was far too innocent and not learned, discerning
To know the price of such wisdom is despair and is burning

The force of the will through the dark hue of one eye
A voyeur of life he’d lurk in shadows and spy
And he’d laugh and deride should I dare ask him why
‘The power is all, till the day that you die’

He said ‘you’ll be my apprentice and learn all my skill’
And to drink of his vision required all loss of will
But I struggled to conquer, to grow with this till
I knew only survival could be claimed by a kill

I was his apprentice and I fed from his words
I felt that full mastery was the least I deserved
And while he tried to delight with the dark and the absurd
I found my true graduation though the slice of a sword

© Helen Valentina 2013 All Rights Reserved

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

Red Carpet

Stiletto
Calves are sleek and long
perfection

She shimmers
Her face bold and strong
complexion

Red Carpet
The flashbulbs play her
star blessed theme

For fame now
nothing she’d aver
for esteem

© Helen Valentina 2013 All Rights Reserved

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

The Sunny Side

Smiley Face

Smiley Face (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

When shadows thicken
Along the wall
When music is swelling
Clarion call
When soldiers are marching
And death has a bride
We need to cling on to
The sunny side

When hope lies so broken
On the floor
When all life is taken
They still take more
When gloom’s your companion
A negative pride
You need to find your way to
The sunny side

All wrongs may be righted
All ills healed
All secrets that fester can
Be revealed
Old grudges can mellow
No tears cried
If you only will walk to
The sunny side

© Helen Valentina 2013 All Rights Reserved

Posted in Fire, Poetry | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 14 Comments

Sheltering Wings

Archangel Michael from Nidarosdomen

Archangel Michael from Nidarosdomen (Photo credit: MortenD)

These sheltering wings
Encompass the world
With promise and hope
All flags unfurled
To make discord unity
To nourish the soul
Give light in the darkness
Completes now the whole
These sheltering wings
Perfection of goal

A wing span of light
Beyond human measure
A fluttering presence
Beyond earthly treasure
To heal those with sickness
And mend grieving hearts
Make gentle our memories
When darknesses start
These sheltering wings
No soul kept apart

© Helen Valentina 2013 All Rights Reserved

Posted in Air, Poetry | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 14 Comments

When They Said That You Were Gone

graveyard

graveyard (Photo credit: ElitePete)

When they said that you were gone
It was not my place to mourn
You’re just some faded photographs
In a scrapbook old and torn

Now you finally took your leave
There’s no space for me to grieve
Just a lingering lost regret
Without ending or reprieve

Such friendship so bleakly lost
Is not measured, shows no cost
Till fabric of the universe
Finds the tear that rips the most

Others standing by your grave
Can pray to see your soul is saved
They are appropriate and fine
Know not your secret so depraved

But will I ever mourn or cry
To see this life has passed you by
When you so censured and reproved
Such cruelty within your sigh?

When they said that you were gone
Just memories we brooded on
My heart’s moon but an eclipse
To finally shut out your dark sun

© Helen Valentina 2013 All Rights Reserved

Posted in Poetry, Water | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 10 Comments

New Years Day 2014 – For Prompt 28 Future Diary

Snake b n w

Snake b n w (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

All significant changes start slowly
Imperceptibly
beneath the skin in silence
and patience
Small stirring of the new
A bud about to bloom
awaits the quiet it requires
and space to be

This new years day will be as any
though freed from work requirements
Resting from a noisy holiday,
its evening celebrations
But beneath the ritual and usual
the snake within
will rise,
open its eyes
Stir at new life
and shed her skin

In the arc of sunlight will be
all the laws of ancient symmetry
And returning to beginnings,
musings will bestow
a light through unseen tunnels,
a surer way to go
The laying of the cards will tell
the stories we all know

I will not know it then, not true
Nor see it now even as I write
This prophecy on Gabriel’s wings
will still be out of human sight
But here I record
a silent vow
I will not remain the person
I am now

Death’s door may be the tributary
The way across to larger seas
But far more like
the winds of change
will gently strike
Will nudge a thought, a prayer, a dream
and send me careening quick downstream
towards a goal I’ll recognise
far later than with new year’s eyes

(c) Helen Valentina 2013, All Rights Reserved

For mindlovemisery’s prompt at: http://mindlovemisery.wordpress.com/2013/11/03/prompt-28-future-diary/

A fascinating prompt about prophecy and writing a future diary entry. I don’t keep a diary or a journal, but only today was thinking of a sense of almost portentous change coming, unseen and unknown until it has occurred, neither good nor bad in itself but essential in some way. This may be fanciful, but it fitted the prompt so perfectly that it almost felt prophetic to have thought of this and then read the prompt itself…life is very strange sometimes, particularly creative life!! 🙂

Posted in Fire, Poetry | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 14 Comments

Shy Boy

Don’t lose the fire in your soul
Sweet, shy boy
Don’t lose perspective or control
Don’t destroy
The beauty of your vision here
The crystallising of your years
Don’t dwell in darkness
Nor in fear
Shy boy

Don’t lose the beauty of your mind
Quick, clever boy
And all the elements you find
Please employ
Your artistry could be your cure
To make from debris something pure
Don’t make your games
To just endure
Clever boy

© Helen Valentina 2013 All Rights Reserved

Posted in Fire, Poetry | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 15 Comments

Written In the Stars

Cosmic cross (astrology)

Cosmic cross (astrology) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

They said that we were written in the stars
Something to do with Venus conjunct Mars
Celestial union born from just a glance
Deeper meanings full of relevance

They said above us Heaven must have smiled
Bid us linger together here awhile
Walk our journey joined here hand in hand
Just as spirits and angels must have planned

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

But our efforts here have run aground
See our fate has proven too unsound
Out of union all this pain arose
Made us question loyalties we chose
Deeper the hurt when deeper the belief
Making our time seem shadowy, a thief
And you wonder what games they can play
When our dreams all wither, go astray?

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

What was hidden in celestial form
When from nothing such a dream was born?
What aspects hidden deeper in the night
To take a false flame and set it so alight?

And Heaven’s smile must just precede their laugh
We the sacrifice, poor unwitting calf
Just pawns here for bored deities to play
Before they wash our hearts and dreams away

© Helen Valentina 2013 All Rights Reserved

Posted in Poetry, Water | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

Cannot

Weeping Angel Wings

Weeping Angel Wings (Photo credit: Photo Dean)

I cannot stand
The aching of unfolding wings
Re-structuring my bowing back
The heaviness of astral strings

I cannot bear
The fluttering, heaving, hopeful heart
Beseeching for some kindness here
That sad bereavement may depart

I cannot carry
The pain across my shoulder blades
Perpetual call of seraphim
The yearning for the gentler glades

I cannot count
Dissolving sands across bleak years
The call of faithful to the deaf
The gathering of unshed tears

I cannot take
This duty that here binds my soul
This failing, falling, grieving earth
That devastation swallows whole

I cannot stand
The aching of unfolding wings
The gap between the needs of man
And solace, which it never brings

© Helen Valentina 2013, All Rights Reserved

Posted in Air, Poetry | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 14 Comments