Sonnet The Vallances

Sonnet The Vallances




for Judy, Meagan, Holly, Mitchell all the Vallances

Here's Richard Vallance, Judy Harris Vallance,
Meagan Holly and Mitchell, nieces and nephew,
Bill Vallance, Donna too and a fine chance 
plenty more abound, and you know it's true.

Our family crest bespeaks of Normandie
where we lived our lives in lavish wealth
where we were crowned as ducal royalty
and never had to hide from court in stealth.

The King of France was our next of kin
and Notre Dame our angelic home,
where the chartreuse Seine quelled the city's din
silenced by our cathedral's holy dome.

And though you wonder why we're Scots by blood
the fleur-de-lys is our indigo bud.

Richard Vallance

October 14 2019

This is my family on my mother's side, as my full name is Richard Vallance Janke. We are in fact descended from the ducal family, De Valence, in Normandy and were related to the King of France in the thirteenth century.

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You may have fallen prey

You may have fallen prey




for Willem Tensen

You may have fallen prey to such a fate
as only we imagine and cannot share;
we know your soul shall never abrogate 
her duty to her God in every prayer
you offer up to Him alone with all
you fairest friends and closest kin alike
according to your heart's most ardent call
to rally yourself against this dire strike,
this awful blow to you and yours you know
you never deserved in your faintest dreams,
this unexpected, all too nasty blow
which only love, yours and our Lord's redeems.
Your injury is also ours to bear
if only we'll bear the cross you lightly share.

Richard Vallance

October 2 2019

photo public domain

Sonnet I am the Resurrection and the Life Vulgate Version

Sonnet I am the Resurrection and the Life Vulgate Version



Am I the Life?

As Jesus moved her to these words, I say,
as Martha said, “I know he’ll rise again
in the last hour of the very last day.”
And Jesus asked, “Am I the light, if slain? 
Do you believe in me?.. resurrected
as am I? Nor have I died! Believe and live...
Do you believe?” ... “Lord, I do, elected
as you are, Messiah to all who give
themselves to you alone, the Son of God,
come to this world!” And saying this, she left
an sought her sister Mary, who was so awed
she turned to her and said, “Be not bereft
as God is ours and we are his alone...
I know we’ll live beside him by his throne.”

Richard Vallance

This sonnet is based on John 11:24-27, here in English

24 Martha answered, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”
25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die;
26 and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?”
27 “Yes, Lord,” she replied, “I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.”

ad here in the Vulgate Latin: 

24 Dicit ei Martha: Scio quia resurget in resurrectione in novissimo die.
25 Dixit ei Jesus: Ego sum resurrectio et vita: qui credit in me, etiam si mortuus fuerit, vivet:
26 et omnis qui vivit et credit in me, non morietur in æternum. Credis hoc?
27 Ait illi: Utique Domine, ego credidi quia tu es Christus, Filius Dei vivi, qui in hunc mundum venisti.

The “Elgin Marbles”

The “Elgin Marbles”



The “Elgin Marbles” ... You dare call them that!
... as if your larceny could be justified
by such a vile name! It just reeks of scat,
a moniker no Grecian can abide!
“Lord” Elgin, axing stones, you hauled them off,  
with Ottoman connivance in your grasp,
your crime a mortal sin at which we scoff,
your pride of possession worthy of an asp!
By shaming Athen’s pride, the Parthenon,
your imperial gall’s outstripped your sins,
your every game you play another con,
another ploy in sick political spins.  
   The British Museum claims, “It’s for the best!”
   and touts your barefaced lies as if in jest.

Richard Vallance

April 20 2019

I Argentée

I Argentée

I Argentée have lived a hardy life:
a Maine Coon mix, I’ve forded babbling rills,
the freest spirit, who’s never suffered strife!
Why, I have scaled formidable forest hills,
where I’ve run into coons and surly bears
who’ve never phased me in the very least;
I’ve roamed the fields and sounded foxes’ lairs,
so why be so surprised when I am deceased.
Because I pride the space I always crave,
although I was on leash, the leash was loose,
to leave me running free, for being brave,
since as you know I’ve always been so spruce!
For all the bugs I’ve chased and mice I’ve caught
I bid you, fairest friends, to mourn me not.

Richard Vallance

March 29 2019

in memoriam, fairest Argentée, libre esprit (free spirit)
April 15 2003 – March 14 2019

The Blue Mosque

The Blue Mosque



In Istanbul, the Blue Mosque, Allah’s shrine
of Holy shrines, invokes his Love for all
who visit her but once, His holy sign
for every faith, to those who heed the call;
Yes, raise your eyes on high, and view her vaults
and Carian columns so fairly nuanced
you’ll fall on your knees... where?... in Allah’s sight,
whose Mind is in our humblest minds ensconced.
And if you sense that Jesus too is there
and Moses from the Mountain has returned,
how can the world ignore your every prayer,
how can we fail if love is never spurned?  
    Religions of the world must reunite
    since this, our holy shrine, reveals the Light.


Richard Vallance
February 28 2019

I was profoundly blessed when I had the great good fortune to visit the Blue Mosque, Istanbul, on April 29 2012. Never in my entire life have I ever ever seen a religious shrine as lovely as this. I was utterly overwhelmed by its sheer glory. If you ever get the chance to visit the Blue Mosque, you should not pass it by. You will be so deeply moved and graced by it that you will never regret for an instant your having visited it.

The photo you see here is my own.

J’ai été profondément béni d’avoir la chance inestimable de visiter la Mosquée Bleue à Istanbul le 29 avril 2012. Je n’ai jamais vu de la vie un lieu saint aussi beau que celui-ci.  J’ai été complètement bouleversé par sa gloire imposante. Si vous aurez jamais l’occasion de la visiter, vous ne devez pas la laisser s’échapper. Vous serez tellement ému que vous ne regretterez jamais un seul instant une telle visite.

C’est ma propre photo que vous voyez ici.

 

winter haiku d’hiver – a dusting of snow = la neige légère

winter haiku d’hiver – a dusting of snow = la neige légère

a dusting of snow
in the fading twilight 
where once sweet birds sang



la neige légère
au crépuscule si pâle,
les oiseaux partis

Richard Vallance

screen capture from a video by Régis Auffray of snowfall outside his home.

capture d’écran d’une vidéo par Régis Auffray de la chute de neige autour de sa maison.

directly inspired by William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 73, also here:
inspiré par le sonnet 73 de  William Shakespeare, ici:

No Isis, a sonnet lambasting the disgusting ISIS movement!

No Isis, a sonnet lambasting the disgusting ISIS movement!



No Isis, a sonnet lambasting the disgusting ISIS movement! The radical ISIS movement is an appalling  insult to the hallowed memory of the great immortal Egyptian gods, Isis and Osiris! I make no apologies whatsoever for writing this scathing sonnet, because, no matter what the religion, Christianity, Islam or any other religion, fundamentalists are a scourge on the eternal Love of Almighty God.

Canadian Spirit Voices

Canadian Spirit Voices



On Spirit Lake the voices flew 
across the coves where forests grew, 
tossing the fragrance of the sun 
over the pines where spirits run. 
Where spirits ran, they run today, 
ancestors' voices up the spruce, 
where paddlers camp but never stay 
where eagles eye the rummaging moose, 
where wolves and bears are born again 
only to see their spring cubs slain, 
where we encamped and they stormed in 
and killed the last of our last kin. 
    Can you imagine what a surprise 
    when they see clarity in our dark eyes? 

Richard Vallance

By Many Roundelays, a sonnet

By Many Roundelays, a sonnet



for Ludwig van Beethoven, and his Symphony no. 6
in F major, “La Pastorale”, III, Allegro, “Sturm” 

Our Earth, from space, goes spinning, Queen of Spheres,
composing clouds in rounds of roundelays,
so thrilling them they rain allegro tears
all over greening fields by stormed-in bays.
As stallions madly wing on lightning hooves,
they beat the Seven Seas, and break the calm.
They race to hem the hale moon in, that moves
their fears to tear us from our smug aplomb.
Our prayers are vain! They’ll never acquiesce
in any urge to quell our fears of gales,
our foibles sins to them, the stallionesque!
For who can take to heart their stunning tales?
   If they run mad, though I may be God’s fool,
   would poets foam for them where full moons rule?


Richard Vallance, © 2013

In Memoriam Joe Ruggier, Canadian poet and poetry publisher

In Memoriam Joe Ruggier, Canadian poet and poetry publisher:

It is with the greatest regret that we announce the passing of Joe Ruggier on July 8 2018, Canadian poet and poetry publisher, based out of Richmond, B.C.



To put my professional relationship with Joe Ruggier into proper context, it is needful for me to clarify that before I started specializing in Mycenaean Linear B linguistics in 2013, subsequent to my unforgettable trip to Greece and Knossos, Crete, in May 2012, I was a poet over decades, and colleague of Joe Ruggier. Two of Joe Ruggier’s scores and scores of highly memorable sonnets, so many of which he dedicated to his belovèd daughter, Sarah, “Stellar Moonrise” (pg. 51), based on John Keat’s stunning masterpiece,“Bright Star” (pg. 51), both here:


 
and “love-sonnet, where shall a body run?” (pg. 94)



were published in international, multilingual sonnet anthology, The Phoenix Rising from the Ashes = Le Phénix renaissant de ces cendres (251 pp.), published  in 2013 by Richard Vallance Janke, Editor-in- Chief, which you can download here




NOTE that the print font size online is very small, but if you download the book, the font increases to normal 10 point size.

In addition to publishing his own poetry and that of hundreds of other well-known and upcoming international poets in his prestigious annual journal, The Eclectic Muse:



Joe Ruggier has himself been widely published in several prominent international poetry e-zines and journals, including Poetry Life and Times:

The Deronda Review:



among many many others.

Joe Ruggier has for decades run his own publishing house, Mbooks of BC (Multicultural Books of British Columbia):



which has published a highly impressive roster of no fewer than 32 poetry books over the years. Here is an excerpt of a number of these books:

Unkind: in commemoration of the savage attack on a Muslim mosque in Quebec City, Sunday, January 29, 2017

Unkind

in commemoration of the savage attack on a Muslim mosque
in Quebec City, Sunday, January 29, 2017



3 So watch yourselves. “If your brother or sister sins against you,
rebuke them; and if they repent, forgive them. 
4 Even if they sin against you seven times in a day, and seven times
come back to you saying ‘I repent,’ you must forgive them.” 

Luke 17: 3-4


Is humankind so kind or so unkind
we have embraced and have abandoned love
we’ harmonized ... or despotize to blind
ourselves to pitying the mourning dove? —
or mob ourselves with xenophobic crime? —
and chase our dreams but chase them all away? —
We pillorize our neighbours half the time,
while terrorizing those for whom we pray.
Come on! What, come again?  Can you explain
why our religion has to reign supreme,
while theirs and yours must suffer mindless pain
to kill our worlds that no one can redeem. 
     Excuse me, God... Hey, do You give a damn
     as we expose our souls to another scam?


Richard Vallance,


January 30, 2017

If quantum… a sonnet on quantum mechanics & computing and the mind

If quantum... a sonnet on quantum mechanics & computing and the mind



If quantum

“God does not play dice with the universe.” 
- Albert Einstein, The Born-Einstein Letters, 1916-55 
... or does He?


If quantum is the boson of the mind,
if D-Wave is the wave the future rides,
if we are ready not to be purblind,
if we can take in bounds prodigious strides,
if God is in our molecules (or not),
if we are God Himself... or He is we,
with what is heaven’s promise fraught?
... or what’s unseen beyond we’ve yet to see?
If we’ve overshot the rim of space and time,
where were we likely sooner to arrive?
... and is the universe still as sublime
as ever? ... or are we now in overdrive?
     If you are reading this and feel confused,
     Well, join the club. I also am bemused.


Richard Vallance,


January 18, 2017

POST 1,400: another sonnet of mine, based on the previous 2 haiku in Mycenaean Greek

POST 1,400: another sonnet of mine, based on the previous  2 haiku in Mycenaean Greek:


Never fear



Matthew 14:27
But Jesus immediately spoke to them, saying, Take courage; it is I:
do not be afraid.




The Temple of Bahai’, Tel Aviv, Israel


While you are so afraid of your own life,
never fear for me, for I fear as well
as well as you for every scrap of strife
we shall have all endured by spiting hell:
and it’s just as well, heaven willing earth
shall allow Bahai’ the inspiration
to distance wisdom of our precious worth,
our spirit His, His imagination
ours the “forever Was”,  forever shared
with every single soul, however ill:  
We’ll know the love of God has always spared
us all and embraces us in his Will...
... and it’s just as well I can hear Him spell
     his Word on us to see us faring well.


Richard Vallance,


January 10, 2017

My Sonnet pursuant to the 2 haiku about sheep: Easy Prey

Easy Prey



Matthew 18:12

What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them
has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains
and go in search of the one that went astray?


Since Hell’s self resurrected on the mad,
the sane dare not consort with the insane,
unless they find themselves as ironclad
in mind as soul to shear across the grain
of equipoise and suffer the untold,
to cast themselves on Sinai’s desert rocks,
to wander off  and stray beyond the fold
where they’ll fall easy prey to Satan’s hawks.
But pause... and ask yourself if you’d submit
to humiliation, the same embraced
by martyrs such as they, or counterfeit,
and by the latter token be defaced.
      The wolf has left his lair, and shall attack
      the sane and the insane... and can’t turn back. 
      

Richard Vallance,


January 9, 2017

Quotation for January 2017: The Stone is Cast, my own sonnet

The Stone is Cast

The Stone is Cast

John 8:7

So since they kept on and on nagging him, he answered them, and said,
“Let the one among you who is sinless be the first to cast a stone at her.”

As stones are cast against the inner walls,
the lessee of the castle wracks his brains,
while wicked winter rails against its halls
and shakes the filings off his dungeon’s chains
where he’s incarcerated serfs at whim,
because they’d dared defy his iron will:
his fingers drew the rusty bolt on him
as well as them, and held him, freezing, still, 
until he fled that vile, ensanguined room, 
their blasted thane — unconscious of his sin,
though conscious of what cold impending doom
was, as winter is, to do him in.
     Oh when it does, its frozen blast shall blind
     him to the shattered mortar of his mind.

Richard Vallance,

January 3, 2017       
  

Le Prince aux lys (sonnet) (fresque de Cnossos 1500 av. j.c.)

Le Prince aux lys (sonnet)

(fresque de Cnossos 1500 av. j.c.)

yZn ,<V wanaka kirino #a&nac xri&nwn

À l’alentour lys épars, échus à ses pieds,

le Prince aux lys séduit de son sortilège

les cuirassiers fiers et leurs coursiers dressés

qu’ils réjouissent en devançant le beau manège.

En pagne embelli d’azur si scintillant

qu’il éblouit les invités, voilà la grâce

d’onyx du bel éphèbe élu, insouciant

du sortilège insinuant Cnossos sans trace.

Devant les murailles aux dauphins ensoleillés,

les vieux augures arrivent à célébrer la joie

du dauphin qui s’incarne aussi aux invités

au mariage à vénérer l’épouse en soie.

Les bien-aimés s’agenouillent et, grâce aux dieux,

sans mot ils s’entrelacent à témoigner leur voeux.

Richard Vallance © 2015,

sonnet révisé ― été publié dans Sonnetto Poesia,

ISSN 1705-4524, pg. 16. Le vol. 6 no. 2, printemps 2007

The Prince of Lilies (Sonnet) Knossos Fresco 1500 BCE

The Prince of Lilies (Sonnet)

(Knossos Fresco 1500 BCE)

yZn ,<V wanaka kirino #a&nac xri&nwn

Lilies at his feet, lilies in his hands,

the Prince of Lilies casts his sortilège.

proceeds with friends, with loved ones and his bands

of cuirassiers, and their white manège.

His loin cloth purled in alabaster folds,

a lily chaplet crowns his onyx hair,

a peacock feather glistening with golds

and azures in the fragrant air.

In sea green silk soigné for Royalty,

this way he casts and that his princely glance

the bridegroom incarnates for all to see,

before they commence the epipthalamic dance.

To come and wed his modest virgin bride,

her fine illumined grace he’ll take in stride.

Richard Vallance © 2015

Sonnet revised, previously published in

Sonnetto Poesia, ISSN 1705-4524, pg. 15. Vol. 6 No. 2, spring 2007

Sonnet, “Nathan Cirillo”, in Honour of Canada’s Fallen Son

Sonnet, “Nathan Cirillo”, in Honour of Canada’s Fallen Son: Click to ENLARGE



Nathan Cirillo’s State Funeral was profoundly moving in every sense, above all emotionally & spiritually. Although (only) a Reservist Corporal in the Princess Highlanders of Hamilton, he was today, Oct. 28 2014, accorded a full regalia honourary military funeral, which has never been granted to anyone of such a low rank in the history of Canada or for that matter, in the entire world. This was surely because of the obscenity of the terrorist shooting him as he stood guard on the right side of the National War Memorial in Ottawa, at 9:52 a.m. on Wednesday, October 22, 2014. Worse still, he slumped right on top of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, bleeding to death on it! He was a wonderful, loving father of his 5 year- old son, Marcus, and everyone who knew him personally, loved him. For Marcus, Click to ENLARGE:



All of his friends, and he had many, were completely shattered by his death. He was a lover of dogs, and he rescued so many strays. His dogs adored him, and when he did not return home, they whimpered for days at the front gate of his home. He was so close to his best friend, Brendan Stevenson, that he even slept with him, cuddling him, as you can see in one of the attached photos, even though he was perfectly straight, and had an adorable girl-friend.


You can see from his photos that he was still a child at heart. What a terrible loss to Canada and to the entire world!


Richard

In Linear B + The Daesh Have Death in Their Hands & Blood in Their Mouths

In Linear B + The Daesh Have Death in Their Hands & Blood in Their Mouths: Click to ENLARGE:



Well before the dastardly terrorist attack on the Canadian Parliament today here in Ottawa, where I live, in which a Canadian soldier on guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier was shot to death in the back 4 times, I was sick to death of these monsters, the Daesh, or so-called ISIS, which is a disgusting insult to the Egyptian goddess, Isis & her consort, Osiris; hence the title of my sonnet about these murderous thugs, who are even worse than Nazis, because they slaughter absolutely everyone who does not fall in line with their “brand of Islam”, a dreadful affront to Islam itself, and to all the Faiths of our harried world. I need say no more. My condemnation of these bloodthirsty barbarians cannot be harsh enough.

The world must be rid of them, and the sooner the better... for the alternative is too hellish to dare imagine. But I will say it out loud. Europe and the nations of the world buried their heads & ignored Hitler before World War II. We do so again at our greatest peril. If World War III strikes – and to my mind, it looks almost imminent – it will be a long, drawn out, bloody, vicious war of attrition. I may last as long as a decade, for we are faced, not with open enemies as our ancestors were in the Second World War, enemies they could at least see, recognize and fight, but with sickening cowards who hide behind masks, rape women and children, and slaughter countless souls by crucifixion and the most bloodthirsty methods of beheading imaginable. I just saw some of the actual beheadings on the Internet, and they made me sick to my stomach. The Daesh actually saw off their victims’ heads with knives!  Nothing could be more barbaric! Even the Reign of Terror in the French Revolution (1792-1794) never descended to such a hellish pit. They used the guillotine, which was swift and clean, for all its horror. But these beasts see otherwise, and act in ways which heap such shame on them that their forfeit their own humanity for the devils they have become. May God have mercy on their souls, because I shall not, even if I am Christian.

The sonnet is my own. I have been a poet all my life, although these days I write little poetry. This sonnet, however, came to me in a flash of lightning, and I mean every word of it.

NOTE that the Greek text is in archaic Greek.

Richard