The Valentine Heart
Posted by Barry Hurd in Author's Favorites, Coffee - Volume Two, Love, Romantic
I won a bottle of wine for having a wee bit of knowledge about the origin and meaning surrounding the word Valentine. I guess being able to answer a few multiple choice questions about an interesting day is worth a bottle of wine for a poet.
Here is a recap of some writing I did a few years ago, along with a new poem:
A history of Valentine.
While Valentine’s day is a marketing woe for modern society, it has a wonderful history that is colored in myth and legend. Everything from the bow of Cupid to the down fall of European nations.
A good portion of historical reference lead us to St. Valentine, a third-century priest who had a reputation for performing marriage ceremonies that had been banned by the Roman emperor. Valentine was thrown into jail, who as legends go, formed a relationship with the jailor’s daughter and he wrote his last message to her “From your Valentine” a phrase which would persists through-out a thousand years. St Valentine found his death on February 14th, in the year 270, and his remains and some of his writings are displayed in Dublin at Carmelite Church.
A thousand years later- Charles, the duke of Orleans, wrote a valentine to his with while imprisoned in the Tower of London. Aside from the origin of St Valentine, the letter is on display at the British Library as the first recorded valentine in 1415.
Years later, regardless of the origin or how many have been sent, Valentine’s day still lives on as we all embrace a moment of personal recollection, hope, love, and faithful spirit to the people we embrace.
The Valentine Heart
This prison,
The place I am locked into
By feverish want,
And things I could not let go.
This is a place of recollection,
The harbinger of reality,
Where reality and dreams reside,
Trying to live within each other.
I want to look outside
yet the walls are solid,
And my sight is obscured,
By images left unseen.
Each day, every minute
Of every hour,
I beg for mercy,
From a soul who made this dream.
My only possession,
The wanting hope,
Of finding my release,
As I give the truest of myself.
A kind warden has graced me,
With an elegant quill
to write my thoughts,
Upon this parchment of my soul.
When my feelings become words,
My heart finds escape,
it finds itself free and elated,
as it ventures amongst the heavens.
If this day, dear saint,
Can release me from this cell,
Where my hope dwells,
And my heart finds your embrace.
Dreams what make me.
Posted by Barry Hurd in Coffee - Volume Two
I don’t remember the sky,
the clouds above,
or the earth below.
Memories of rain drops
and fallen dreams,
these are the things
I still don’t see.
Where am I,
what creates me?
is this story, this tale,
something I can be,
before I falter,
losing my serenity?
I pray on my knees.
Fallen, falling,
from the stars
and my home.
Finding my world,
to be harder with hope,
than reality ever was.
Dreaming lucidly dying.
If not for the hour,
the year of desire
I stopped breathing,
would I be alive, trying,
crying, seeing, believing,
in these things amongst clouds,
as I stand beneath these tears.
I am not here,
nor am I there.
Could I afford to look again,
I would try, beg myself to ask,
why I still dream of stars tonight,
and these things I still can’t see,
make the best parts of me.
The Truth of Love
Posted by Barry Hurd in Coffee - Volume Two, Love
Falling in love does not have a reason, it has a purpose.
Love is not passive, love is daring.
Love is watching your life fade to black.
Love is about resurrecting yourself with one thought.
Love is knowing that you took your last breath stepping in front of a train for them.
Love is not hateful, nor hurtful.
Love is persistent, meaningful, caring.
Love is holding them tightly, without hesitation or delay.
Love is about knowing when you must find strength in letting them go.
Love is hard.
Love is peaceful, healing, nurturing.
Love is offering your hand and your soul, to believe.
Love is daring yourself, when you don’t know what parts to share.
In Front of a Crowd
Posted by Barry Hurd in Coffee - Volume Two, Survival
So many people believe in me,
The things I see, what could be.
Should I just claim, “here I am?â€
As I silently walk onto the stage
Uncovering myself, preparing to expose my fear.
I would rather, as my throat catches my voice,
Try to keep the beautiful butterflies down,
And hope, for one moment, that I am applauded.
There are not many reasons for which, I understand.
Not many reasons at all.
Yet I find myself hearing appreciation, gratitude.
On a pedestal of public isolation,
I am welcomed by strangers, thanked by friends,
As my legs tremble along with my words from my lips,
and my life is thrown out like random confetti.
I say something of which I cannot remember,
As the crowd erupts into a flurry of commotion,
My spirit panics, my breathing pauses,
And I feel myself losing hold of evasive sanity,
The panic holds me tight, as I feel my skin try to crawl away.
I pause, but not with planning,
the type of hesitation you find with fearing,
and I look out into a sea of faces rippling with expectation.
I cannot weather the tide of such unknown envy,
And I dare not leave this post before I am truly done.
If only I could remember,
The fact of why I am here.
Perhaps the truth of knowing my purpose,
Could elude to the reason I share myself,
And help me understand who I am.
The Comedian’s Version of Love – a Homicidal Maniac
Posted by Barry Hurd in Coffee - Volume Two
Love is having someone tell you they killed someone,
Love is not hesitating, or asking questions.
Love is driving to Home Depot with them, at 11 P.M.
To buy a shovel.
Love is not complaining about the mess.
Love is about being prepared, having taken effort,
Love is lining the back of your trunk with plastic bags.
The little specks of evidence, are simply happy memories.
Love is about laughing,
Love is the question of shallow, or six feet deep.
Love is getting in the hole as you dig it even deeper,
And don’t worry about getting dirty.
Love is the risk of getting caught,
Love is about talking to the police detective,
Love is realizing you still have a shovel,
And figure out the officer needs a bigger hole.
Charging a shovel at Home Depot $19.95
Finding true love – priceless.
Memories of a Pirate
Posted by Barry Hurd in Coffee - Volume Two
Of each thought, I wonder.
The rarity of neither peace or pain,
simple yet fundamental feeling
Of being a rainbow of conclusions,
wonderously blending themselves together.
Each thought is wonder
The creation or the destruction,
the moment of new experience
or forgotten memory
trapped in amber.
Wondering of the thought
With each thought, power of its own
to pleasure or to forget,
the jealousy of doubt and fear,
to build and to break.
I wonder with each thought,
To define the positive,
or discover the negative.
To build the very tool
I need to destroy myself.
To wonder if
I, as a moment within my own mind,
become a memory of what moment comes,
to find myself stolen away,
by the very thief I have become.
The Truth of Being a Crow
Posted by Barry Hurd in Coffee - Volume Two, Daily thoughts
After flying long and hard,
I find myself tired.
My wings, glossy and beautiful,
seemingly go unnoticed.
For the way I see,
I am alone, always wanting,
Amongst those who mimic me,
who give my image ill repute.
Within my eyes,
the ebony black definition of loss,
a place where no dreams survive,
Empty as my hope to fly.
Dear eagle, why am I not your brother?
could I, if not for such ugly brethren be yours.
Would my spirit not shine, as my wings once did,
upon the blue sky of day, brilliant and powerful.
Is my path born to me, wishing and hoping,
as my coven flock around decaying dreams,
and the bodies of strangers become our feast.
Do I dare say, that I am different?
I am not different.
That is what my fear tells me.
I cower behind that thought in the night.
Hoping that the voice of truth is never heard.
I watch my family,
as they tear away the purity of life,
destroy the sanctity of peaceful slumber,
and drag each soul into our chaos.
I watch.
And I am ashamed.
My feeble hope to be something more, is quiet.
Amongst a roar of indifference and hate.
I find in being alone,
that my image has lost the glamor I once dreamdt,
if I could only hold myself with faith,
I may once day be an eagle.
The Borrowed Umbrella
Posted by Barry Hurd in Coffee - Volume Two
I ask this stranger,
holding my salvation,
the very charity I need,
If you found my heart in the rain today,
would you understand where I am,
that I have lost my way?
If you found a start, a new beginning,
would you be willing to play that part?
Don’t worry, I know you really can’t say.
Drops falling on my head,
trying to wash away everything,
no cost that I afford, just my given word.
Strange clouds float above my life,
hiding things that are never what they seem.
Just believe in me, I don’t wash away.
Dear stranger, you don’t know me.
You can’t see the hope I need,
probably don’t know where I’ll be.
If you can stay, on this corner of my life,
you can feel the reason I don’t stray,
these gray skies are in my dreams.
When my dreams begin to fade,
and you fail to feel these drops,
begin to worry, dear unknown friend.
That is when life, these clouds,
the very essence of beauty,
are never compared to something less.
My life, is realizing beauty
has loyal faith and unbroken hope,
that it exists beyond the gray horizon.
New Years Writing
Posted by Barry Hurd in Coffee - Volume Two
It was Monday morning,
which everyone wrongfully considered
as the first day of the week,
even when it was the last day of the year.
Like a virtual pessimist,
it is considered a day half over
a time when we need our coffee,
to begin everything, including our waking.
Would we describe the minute we rise,
as the ending of our lives?
to become humorously ironic
as we laugh and ask why?
One day we dare,
when we dream of desire
another hour we share,
When we witness midnight fire.
Neverending Thoughts
Posted by Barry Hurd in Coffee - Volume Two
Warm, whimsical words of caring
often without my conscious decision.
Written in my dreams as if I had awoke,
yet always obscured by the fog of emotional rhetoric.
So I write the harsh letters onto paper,
forming words of both compassion and ignorance.
I find myself wondering if my soul was once dropped,
and the thousands of voices glimmered like mirrors.
“Oh yes” I think.
Perhaps a moment of indiscretion shattered my memory,
leaving it reflection upon itself, pondering again and again.
Worry, love, despair, hope, hate, care,
Every thought of myself having two sides of reality.
Desperation I would think.
To be the traveler who came to the fork in the road,
with no companion, save them self, to make a decision,
of left or right, order and chaos.
“Choose wisely” I pray.
I try for a moment to stop,
to keep still for a moment long enough to recollect where I am going.
Years pass, tender seconds create months of longing,
my mind kept in the oblivion of whirling serendipity.
Yet I find myself alone.
On a path to where I am not sure.
A cobbled route of perfect occurrence,
defining each step I take with unwritten words.
“Yet I care” I cannot forget.
I dare not let my memory falter,
should I remember that scent, that sound,
the amazing way everything felt oh so right.
I cannot fail to lose everything else, before I am found.
I will not find passion,
in the dark corners of lavish disregard,
but I will find it, if only I can dream as if…
I am awake.