Introspection – Helen Marie Joyce

The Children of Leviathan (Chapter three)

Heavy breathing, her fists clenched behind her back against the door, her legs shaking.

Eyes still shut, she took a long deep breath.

Relief.

She had just marginally escaped the double wrath of the strange limbo-like wilderness, manifesting itself in the imminent Electric storm and the pack of crones prowling outside. Yet somehow she did not feel entirely safe even behind the bolted door. A false sense of security grew in the pit of her stomach. She could not be sure whether the insides of this House on the Hill held no hostility, no grudges against her, and did not seek to harm her soul. In fact, she was more certain than not that the House was awaiting her arrival in order to begin its foul play. However, she could not afford to be overcome with panic and so she tried to calm herself by thinking, “confront each fear as it comes, not before”.

But was it fear indeed? Fear of what? Of the unknown, fear of something real, or an illusion? Fear of feeling helpless and alone, fear of feeling powerless and lost? Fear of pain, of loss, of damnation? She still did not know which questions to ask, and this scared her more than any demons or traps Leviathan placed in her path. Continue reading The Children of Leviathan (Chapter three)

Aphrodite’s Child

Life behests that before I can address the jarring sordid question,
you must have reached your attaining mark.

Embracing our beings’ essence with discretion, would not,
should not strangle the spark.

My hopes dragged through the darkest of the dark,

while your dreams evaporating, fading, and paling out. Continue reading Aphrodite’s Child

The Count of Three

To tell a truth of blood and wine

Takes tears of liquid steel and a lazy tongue

Clenched fists, holding on to a hope that fades

Into the grave, sieving through the cracks like fine sand

I kissed your mind and our souls collided.

So I’ll give you to the count of three,

‘Til you think of me.

Continue reading The Count of Three

The nth Life

I awake; eyes open wide, ears pierced back, I lay still for a while and take in the damp dense air.

It smells like victory tonight.

I creep; silently, dauntingly, down the roof and over the lines of fences in the deadest hour of the night.
It is now my moment to thrive.

I search; in utter stealth, clandestinely for the gifts of the dark. I am omniscient and dominantly alone to reap the rewards of the nth life.

Continue reading The nth Life

From the Skulls to the Stars, and all the in between.

Title: From the Skulls to the Stars, and all the in between.

– From Death to Eternity, and all the in between is Life. The Life we choose.

Claim: Let us make the hypothesis that Dracula was in the know: “The blood is the Life.”

Assumption? I assume that: The Bones is Death, and the Spirit is Eternity.

Conclusion: Do not fear death, for it is the stimulant of our vitality and fuels an ardent desire for the Life. Do not ignore Life, for it is what will enrich our soul and galvanize our Spirit for Eternity.

Continue reading From the Skulls to the Stars, and all the in between.

No Time

‘No time.’ For something as perpetual as time, it’s so contradictory to never have enough.

Time is one of the few perpetual notions that humans have identified as part of our own need to comprehend life. The universe, the world, our world, our existence is shaped around time. Antiphon the Sophist has said that “…time is not a reality (hypostasis), but a concept (noêma) or a measure (metron)”; a concept to help us bring a metric order to Chaos, with the general consensus relating to its introduction being after the Big Bang.
It is intangible, it is relentless, it only moves forward. The glory of the present moment only lasts for a fragment of time, and each moment is experienced for its brief existence, then it belongs in the past and a new present one takes it place. A continuous sequence of present moments, that creates its relative sequence of moments-of-gone, leaving a trail of events called ‘Past’ behind for the little Hansels and Grettels to find in the ‘Woods of Forever’.

Continue reading No Time

I Cried Wolf

Last night it was cold. It was freezing. The snow kept falling and falling, and as it continued to fall for hours, it weaved a thick white blanket that covered the landscape. In the wooden cottage, it was warm; warm and safe and lonely. The cries of the pack outside haunted my mind, painted disturbing pictures, images of pain and longing and yearning. My body begged me to stay indoors, by the fire, to fetch more wood, to cuddle up in front of the flames and relish in the feeling of safety. Yet my mind traveled fast, beyond the cottage, over the white blanket and into the woods, following the howls. But I stayed; I stayed until I could no longer hear the calling, the beckoning. And then I slept.

Continue reading I Cried Wolf

The Two Hemispheres

I take my coffee black, no sugar, no milk, with a splash of cold water at the rim, so I can taste the invigorating aroma that already fills my nostrils without further delay. This is a predictable, self-inflicted habit circa 7.30am on weekdays that exhilarates the mind and triggers the conqueror in me to ‘Carpe Diem’.

I applaud simplicity when I see it, I relish it, I revel in it. Nothing simpler than a black cup of coffee. Check.

Continue reading The Two Hemispheres

Words vs Music

What is it about melodised words that get us going? That gets me going? That triggers a strong emotional reaction that the same words, unmarried to a set of notes, may in certain cases leave me, well not indifferent entirely depending on content, but with such a watered down version of the same feeling.

Number one: for sure it’s the Words. The Words create lines of verse in our heads, prose or poetry, other peoples’ thoughts and concerns that form a story every time, that are somewhat open to interpretation within the boundaries the Words themselves set.

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Trainspotted

Last night I dreamed of trains; of the past and of the present. No, my subconscious was not preoccupied by the ones of the future and that is not without meaning.
Steam locomotive hauled cargo-bourn squealers and bogies, passenger carrying luxury carriages with all the long-gone glitz and glamour of another era.
Then the Metropolitan tube-type ones that converge and disperse forming underground labyrinths that connect the bustling city above, the grande vitesse ones travelling at phenomenal speeds from one end of the country to the other.

“Life is a train of moods like a string of beads; and as we pass through them they prove to be many colored lenses, which paint the world their own hue, and each shows us only what lies in its own focus.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson.

I remember enjoying the scenery whilst sipping on mint tea in the velvet-dressed dining car of the Orient Express (not to be confused with the Venice Simplon OE that continues to run).

Continue reading Trainspotted