Tag: Poetry

Everything Is Magic

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Everything Is Magic by Valerie Parente

The wisemen say they don’t believe in magic.
They believe in reality.
But reality is magic.
You’ve just been conditioned not to see.

Symbols on a piece of parchment
can make you hear voices
see new worlds
weigh different choices.
They can prompt an epiphany
share cures or poisons
elicit joy or devastation
be one of the greatest forces.

Potions consumed from bottles
can perform a range of spells
course through your blood
send you to heaven or hell.
They can spark bravery
inhibitions, they can quell
they can make a shy man speak
become another version of himself.

Elixirs from the earth
are constantly feeding
giving energy to move
and keep your heart beating.
They fight off disease
they bind the bleeding
supercharged by a fireball
we call it sunlight gleaming.

Life creates life
from life, so it goes,
and in acts of love
we see another seed grow.
It’s all virtually impossible
but breath still flows
against all the odds
you exist, and you know.

The world is a magical place
the greatest fantasy we could ever witness
everything is extraordinary
the farthest thing from hopeless
you’ve just been taught
not to notice.

Heart In My Throat

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Heart In My Throat by Valerie Parente

I had a distressing dream
that my heart was in my throat
and the voice inside of me
didn’t know how to flow.

I struggled to tell the elders
I could not survive like this
but they were just happy
that love in me still exists.

All of my love and heartache
at the same level I consume
the two were not the same
but my signals were askew.

A heart in the throat
is a very strange case
I could still feel it all
it just came from the wrong place.

It is not an easy way to live
and I had trouble vocalizing
how I would not survive
but I kept on surviving.

When I awoke, I remembered my youth
and how I thought I’d die instead of grow
but here I am, my adulthood so full of love
each day fulfilled beyond my wildest hopes.

I think it was young me all along
trying to communicate
“Thank you for believing I was wrong”
to the elder in me today.

– Valerie Parente (1-26-2025)

Hunger

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Hunger by Valerie Parente

I was never any good
at decoding my appetite,
was I really hungry
or was I empty inside?
Not in the pit of my stomach
but my heart and its hole,
looking for an object
for my affection to go.

I strive for permanence
but permanence scares me,
I’m afraid of full
but full is not finality,
there’s a fleeting hunger
that comes and goes,
and I am an example
of the flux and flow.

Ever since I met you
I feel the endless regimen,
the cycle of hunger
is a permanent impermanence,
a satisfaction then a longing
hungry, full, then hungry again,
and you remind me
that this makes me human.

I will always come back
now that I’ve had a taste
I finally understand my appetite
and the way it is paced.
I will always want you again
just not all at once
and I am no longer afraid
of a man’s permanence.

– Valerie Parente (1-19-2025)

Dreamcatcher

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Dreamcatcher by Valerie Parente

To catch a dream
you must live with the thought
as if your dream
is already caught.

All you found in your sleep
cannot be lost
just write it down
to manifest the plot.

You’ve seen if before
you will see it again
this time, awake
the way you imagined.

Your dreams are manifestations of your mind.
Your mind is a manifestation of the universe.
Your universe is a manifestation of your dreams.
Creation never ends, it only morphs.

– Valerie Parente (1-4-2025)

Echo Chamber

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Echo Chamber by Valerie Parente

Reverberate
between polar opposite walls
two sides polarized
same anger, different drawls.

Surround yourself
by the hard headed
it’s like a mirror
just noise with a reflection.

The ideas you bring into the world
have a way of profound growth
as long as there’s a hardened surface
they come back one hundred fold.

This chamber, you made
thinking if the space is formal
then you can enact real change
but alas, we talk ourselves in circles.

Now did you know if it happens quick enough
the human ear can never tell
the difference between original sound
and the echoes from someone else?

So talk slow, listen carefully,
go outside, don’t stay in one room,
or the walls of your echo chamber
will eventually close in on you.

– Valerie Parente (12-7-2024)

Alchemy

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Alchemy by Valerie Parente

Art
is just alchemy to the 5 senses
transforming the “pain in here”
into something beautiful in the atmosphere.

The Artist
can disturb or it can delight
evoking a feeling from the reeling
of their individual healing.

– Valerie Parente (11-24-2024)

Shape Shifter

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Shape Shifter by Valerie Parente

Have you ever heard
of the Shape Shifter?
She changes form
to fit her mister.

Shape Shifters are not born
they are girls once raised
by those who were supposed to
show them praise.

No one protected her
or taught her to question
why man’s needs come first
and hers come second.

Here lies red dotted lines
and the pen is his
it’s a calculated path
so she does not trip.

The Shape Shifter has no passion
just sheer dread
that she’ll have to confront
the girl in her head.

And if you asked her
who she really is
she wouldn’t have an answer
aside from “someone’s Mrs.”

Dear Darkling

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Dear Darkling by Valerie Parente

You are the symbol of pain becoming beauty
featherless wings
hope withstanding mood swings
sprouting from a spine
where stance is a nuisance
so you arch your back
like the moon and its exuberance
and though you come from the aether
your experience is human;
so fear not, dear darkling
you have become the blueprint
of finding beauty in darkness
now the teacher, once the student.

As above, you knew your worth
so below, you went and proved it.

– Valerie Parente (10-26-2024)

Seaglass

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Seaglass by Valerie Parente

You are seaglass;
look how far you’ve come
from a jagged past,
when they tried to treat you
like you were trash,
but the world had plans
other than that,
using ebbs and flows
so you could adapt,
soften the blows
because you’re seaglass;
you drifted afar
but then you came back,
softer than before
because you’re seaglass.

– Valerie Parente (10-11-2024)



Goddess

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Goddess by Valerie Parente

We call it the will of God
though women bear that cross
for it is them who represent
the concept of consequence
and if the world was honest
we’d say it came from a Goddess.
Therein lies, a tale as old as time;
how it is man who crucifies
the ones who wholeheartedly know
the magnificent power that they hold.

– Valerie Parente (9-28-2024)