helenvalentina

Against The Grain

Posted on September 11, 2013 by Helen

Woodwork (Photo credit: Giant Ginkgo)

We’re cut against the grain
If our lives were woodwork
We would be
A strange and dubious artistry
We couldn’t quite explain
We lived to be our parents’ bane
We’re cut against the grain

We strive to make our mark
For fame and fortune
We were bound
But blind to something else we found
We’re swimming in the dark
Fire from a simple spark
We strive to make our mark

Neither perfect nor polite
Like moths to flames
We longed to be
The talk of all society
A masked ball’s chief delight
Is what is done deep in the night
Neither perfect nor polite

We’re cut against the grain
All angles sharp
And half aligned
Never seen and not maligned
We feast on our remains
Hid now by dark curtains
We’re cut against the grain

Posted in Earth, Poetry | Tagged Aspiration, belief, choice, creativity, dark, delusion, grain, identity, Musings, truth, woodwork | 19 Comments

Father

Posted on September 10, 2013 by Helen

English: Father and daughter J. Kennedy and Cissy, 1905 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In my father’s home
His father stern
Created out of fear and rules
The fault lines in his children
All broken somehow
In their own, unique way
They took their lessons
Into the bleak day
The bleak day

In my father’s home
He’d be called to heel
Spare the rod and spoil the child
What was there
To be revealed?
Just the nothing
Of a loveless way
They took their lessons
Into the bleak day
The bleak day

Years later my father took
His broken need
To his new family
He tried and failed
To bridge the gap
Unaccepted in the world at large
And barely recognised
Within my family’s sway
He took his lessons
Into the bleak day
The bleak day

I never knew him really
Not even when he died
He was thunder and remoteness
Locked up, within, inside
What little that he knew of love
He hugged within himself
A beggar cannot recognise
The truer path to wealth
And if I had the chance now
‘I understand’ is what I’d say
You took your lessons
Into the bleak day
The bleak day

Posted in Poetry, Water | Tagged acceptance, belief, choice, cruelty, dark, denial, family, father, identity, loss, Philosophy, Relationships, truth | 22 Comments

Craven

Posted on September 10, 2013 by Helen

The execution of Lady Jane Grey in the Tower of London in the year 1554. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

These dreadful days
Blood spilled by heresy and lies
A swordsman’s blade
Or the fire’s eyes
All the same to dusty death

Spirits of cold righteousness
Demand their place
In darkest history
And all the reigns of kings
Just men
Emboldened in their hearts

The craven politics of opportunity
Court parades and dances
A pageantry to artifice
The cruellest cut is secret
And plotted in dark corridors
That lead to the ruin of innocence
Or the discovery
Of malevolence
In any case the walk’s the same
To gallows or to flame

Posted in Fire, Poetry | Tagged Aspiration, court, cruelty, dark, death, fear, history, Philosophy, Politics, truth, Tudor, tudor england | 12 Comments

Saving Grace

Posted on September 9, 2013 by Helen

amazing grace (Photo credit: eschipul)

In this moment came
My saving grace
When all the tumult of the world
Might crash around me
Perhaps deservedly
A moment’s godlike leniency
Reaches out to me

And could I now believe
This tender hand
Which reached across this space
Was true and hopeful here
Could wipe away my tears
Relieve me of my fears
Support me through my years?

Pure moment of belief
To see my saving grace
Where wretched I had fallen
Old and broken to my knees
Barely breathing, just degrees
Yet before my heart could freeze
Came this graceful, calming breeze

Posted in Fire, Poetry | Tagged acceptance, alchemy, belief, choice, Divine grace, forgiveness, God, Grace, passion, Religion and Spirituality, Spiritual, truth | 8 Comments

Prime Suspect

Posted on September 9, 2013 by Helen

JMR-Memphis -Blind Justice-3 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

And would we all agree
That he
Must be
The prime suspect
Of this gallery?

And would we all concur
Like her
Prefer
To nod assent
And not aver?

The judge will raise his brow
Just now
Avow
The sentence true
And bow

So is the innocent
Here spent
And sent
To darkness deep
Imprisonment?

Posted in Air, Poetry | Tagged choice, Crime and Justice, Injustice, judge, judgement, jury, justice, Suspect, truth | 8 Comments

Slicing – for Community Storyboard September 8 Prompt – Horror Story

Posted on September 9, 2013 by Helen

Xochipilli – Aztec God of Art (Photo credit: Jan Vrsinsky)

Razor sharp
Slicing
My sinews crack open
I’m almost unaware
Of the assault
It comes so quietly
So expertly
They always come
In shadows
And silence
And slicing

Sweat soaked sheets
Would mix with blood
Cold grey eyes
Watched me for years
Calculating the time
I was ripe
For the plucking

We are food for gods
Of eons past
They rise on our breath
Seeking blood and bone
To give them brevity of form
And sickly nourishment
And I am spent

And I sing this song
All night long….

‘The pain is almost
Pleasure
And the night will have
Its measure
I am only their lost
Treasure
Lost treasure…’

If you see me tomorrow
And my eyes are vacant
You will know
They have sliced the last
Part of my soul
And mixed it with
My sinews and blood
There’s something here
I’ve understood
But far too late

And all the children sing
As they circle in a ring
Of the playground….

‘Never, never whisper their names
Never, never play their games
Never open the gate
Or tempt this darker fate
They’ll slice you all the same
All the same….’

For Community Storyboard Prompt – Horror Story at : http://neverendingstorydepository.wordpress.com/2013/09/08/prompt-for-the-week-of-september-8-2013-friday-the-13th-fan-fiction/

Posted in Air, Poetry | Tagged ancient gods, community storyboard, cruelty, darkness, delusion, fear, horror, horror story, madness, pain, prompt, Spiritual | 14 Comments

One Child – for Right2Write Prompt 9 Stop Terrorism

Posted on September 8, 2013 by Helen

Sand Sculpture by Sudarshan Pattnaik

The death of one child
is the death of the world

Sand arising as mother earth
shakes off her despair
and hungers for an artist’s vision there

Reptile brain awakens
flooding the system
with fear and alarm

The eye watching over us
blinking so slowly
means us some harm

The death of one child
is the death of us all

The universe turns
slow and elliptical
creating and recreating itself through pain

Grasping for a victory
or a vengeance creates
blood on blood

Devastation fields
Streets of fallen limbs
Nothing is good

The death of one child
is the death of the world

For Right2Write prompt 9 at http://howanxious.wordpress.com

Checkout the other prompt entries and join in! Spread the word on a prompt on such a vital topic to us all!

Posted in Fire, Poetry | Tagged child, choice, dark, death, despair, devestation, madness, Politics, prompt, terrorism, truth, war | 23 Comments

Trick of the Mind

Posted on September 8, 2013 by Helen

Jester (Photo credit: mrpolyonymous)

You were a trick of the mind
A wolf in jester’s clothing
A child within a man

You were a phantom being
Clothed in trickster flesh
Strange skeletal span

You were the opposite
Of what you would portray
And yet you didn’t lie

You were a trick of the mind
A turn upon the boards
A winking of an eye

Posted in Air, Poetry | Tagged artifice, choice, cruelty, dark, delusion, denial, game, Musings, Relationships, trick, truth, wink, wolf | 12 Comments

Experiments

Posted on September 8, 2013 by Helen

Dice for various games, especially for roleplaying games. Español: Dados en forma de poliedro regular (de 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 20 y 100 caras) y el dado típico de 10 caras. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Rolling dice
With the universe
Thinking twice
Is such choice perverse?
Nothing here
Left to stop, reverse
Rolling dice
With the universe

Shall I try
Such experiments
Go for truth
Not for vague pretence
Can’t control
The result’s events
Shall I try
Such experiments?

Only coin
Is the loss to make
So it’s clear
For this risk I take
Calculate
Hope I don’t mistake
Only coin
Is the loss I make

Let me dream
And beseech the sky
Take me up
On such wings to fly
Don’t desert
Leave me high and dry
Let me dream
I beseech the sky

Rolling dice
With the universe
Once or twice
Cannot be rehearsed
Once begun
Cannot be reversed
Rolling dice
With the universe