English: Doorbell (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The doorbell rang
My heart it sang
But it wasn’t you
The telephone call
Was a rise, then fall
It wasn’t you
The letter I read
Was another’s instead
And not from you
And the email received
Gave me no reprieve
It was not from you
© Helen Valentina 2013, All Rights Reserved
Smile 2 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I was taken by your smile
Warm eyes crinkled
Deep etched dimples
Radiating something inner
That was laughing to be free
Azure eyes can really sparkle
When the lilt of silver laughter
Joins the image
So uniquely and so completely
Your own
I was taken by your warmth
Like a fire flaming softly
In deep winter
Keeping all the cold and monsters
Far away
Was taken by your smile
For it was completely other
Completely you and so, so bright
It simply beckoned
Me to stay
© Helen Valentina 2013, All Rights Reserved
Hoar frost or soft rime on a cold winter day in Lower Saxony, Germany. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
This kingdom of heaven is desolate
Cold winter has come to its shores
A battalion of wariness follows
And like slaves we are called to the oars
Guide this ship cross uncertain horizons
Find no angels to sing in your wake
And all of our mis-calculations
Make of heaven the cruellest mistake
The Creator is weary of fighting
No new thoughts can arise from His art
There is nothing here left that is beating
Not even the sound of His heart
What creates now this cold desolation
In a place where the spark was once fire
What indifferent creature’s gestation
Has reduced the sublime to the mire?
There’s no serpent to carry the secrets
There’s no mystery left here to find
And the only ghosts that can breathe here
Are the ones that the sun left behind
The kingdom of heaven is breaking
Across all our skies see its scars
And all of our love here forsaking
Poor Venus is vanquished by Mars
© Helen Valentina 2013, All Rights Reserved
Mathilde Townsend, wealthy Washington society woman, wife of Peter G. Gerry and Sumner Welles (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
You endured her withering gaze
You had to
Her door was a ritual passageway
A way through
Her inspection is cold and precise
She means to
Makes us creatures of her own device
Agreed to
Like the crone she’s meticulously wise
She makes you
Hold your secrets in some other guise
You need to
Find the words that would lead to her smile
She has to
Yield at last to your presence and guile
And free you
And she speaks now her withering words
You came for
Finds you charming, if somewhat absurd
To be adored
And you know that you’ve passed now some test
You needed
And you’re now singled out from the rest
Superceded
© Helen Valentina 2013, All Rights Reserved
Gnawing need
Beyond our choice
Sweet desire
Finds its voice
Given nourishment
We rejoice
Craving, hunger
Beyond our choice
Stomach tightens
Dragging need
Isn’t gluttony
Or even greed
From this hell we
Must be freed
Grasping hunger
Dragging need
© Helen Valentina 2013, All Rights Reserved
She dances alone… (Photo credit: Neogene)
I’m dancing all alone
To sleepy syncopation
Every slide and step just seems
A singular innovation
The sweep of saxophone
And I’m dreaming of the night
I’m just dancing all alone
It’s a kind of sweet delight
I’m humming to the tune
As I turn and dip and sway
All my losses and my sorrows
Seem to gently fall away
It’s a sexy and slow rhythm
Which is heard best on my own
It’s not even my decision
I’m just dancing all alone
© Helen Valentina 2013, All Rights Reserved
English: A corridor outside hotel rooms in the Hotel, . (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Those days we met
In hotel rooms
And spent such lazy
Afternoons
We made our secrets
And promised twice
To fool all others
About our vice
We drank champagne
In silken sheets
Our favourite tunes
Played on repeat
A recipe for our
Dark, cold hearts
In lies and trickery
Is where it starts
© Helen Valentina 2013, All Rights Reserved
English: Point of Ayre foghorn (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The foghorn blows
Across the bay
A mournful song
Reverberates
Across shining water
Skipping like a stone
It seems to tell
Its story through its tone
Of days spent lonely
Lost to love
A melody in minor key
A single note
The foghorn blows
© Helen Valentina 2013, All Rights Reserved
Thermometer (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Hi Everyone
I’m sitting here on Saturday morning, my time, nursing this nasty cold/flu that seems to be traversing the world right now. And I’m finding the initial ‘feel much better to just get out of bed’ feeling I had earlier today is rapidly disappearing into a general malaise.
So I’m thinking I might not be round the computer much over this weekend. My work is crazy busy – and sometimes just plain crazy – at the moment, so I haven’t even had the time to keep up with everyone’s blogs as much as I’d like over the last couple of weeks, but now my body is further betraying my best intentions in that regard too.
So I may not get to everyone’s blogs as frequently as usual this weekend, or have time to catch up more generally through my Reader. If so please know I’m not deliberately neglecting you!! 🙂
I will try to still be briefly online a couple of times a day to answers any comments from people who read my poems and respond (I have poems scheduled ahead for over a month so two per day will still post even if I’m not around much) and I’ll try to keep up with the weekly tradition I have now of participating in a couple of poetry prompts that are launched on Sunday (my time) each week. But otherwise, it’s a leave of absence for me.
Take care everyone and, as they say in the classics, I’ll be back!!
Cheers
Helen V
Paradox (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I woke one morning to recall
A night without a dream at all
And from this dreamless well arose
Such choices, of which none I chose
And from such choices turned away
Came shafts of sunlight without day
And memories that I’d forget
Like ghost-less rooms to haunt me yet
I tried one evening to bestow
A knowledge that I didn’t know
And out of ignorance was found
Intelligence without a bound
This paradox could be undone
If four were three and three were one
But now I can’t escape the hell
Believing not what’s known too well
© 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.
Gravatar image credit: (c) iStockphoto.com/Lobsterclaws
helenvalentina 