Murm'rings of the Heart: A Collection of Poetry and Song Written to Inspire

By Olivia Villa-Real

In this fast-paced world of science and technology, we have set ourselves to a never-ending race with time. Weve lost our capacity to enjoy the simple pleasures in life. We have dulled our senses from appreciating the wild flowers along our way that flaunt their beauty and waft their fragrance on the breeze. We cast our vision hurriedly past the inviting pathways into the deep woods that eagerly entice us to take a moments rest. Lest we become robots devoid of feeling, machineries unable to experience bliss, we must elevate ourselves from the mundane to such loftiness of spirit as will enable us to experience and enjoy the true essence of life. This book offers us a sanctuary to rest our weary body and spirit, and its poetry allows us to feel the realities within ourselvestoo often missed, yet are far richer than the physical realities around us that are too commonplace and barren to appreciate. The poems tug at the root of our being, awakening the treasures lurking within uslittle gems too inspiring to miss and too beautiful to forget.
This book is a window into my soulthe anima within me that gives me life. It is the true reality of my existencemore than the reality of my physical being. It is beyond what my intellect can reach and what my emotions can inspire. My poetry, which includes my songs, is the fresh breath of my soul; it is the raw expression of what is at my core, borne in the spur of the moment and perfected by inspiration. It is, therefore, in a spirit of love and absolute trust that I welcome you into this sanctuary of my soul since I render myself bare, naked, and vulnerable as I put you in touch with my true reality, which is devoid of fear, pretenses, inhibitions, as well as self-serving needs or purpose.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Nov 18, 2015
• ISBN: 9781504956550

Olivia Villa-Real

Olivia Villa-Real, an author, composer, singer and pianist, combines her passion for writing with her artistry in music. She infuses both genres with the sensitivity and sentimentality that permeate the Asian culture, owing from her birth, childhood, and early adult experiences in the Philippines. However, after immigrating to the United States and settling in Los Angeles, California the melting pot of different cultures, her creative canvas took on a different landscape. Like a sponge, her sensitive nature absorbed the varied prisms of artistic color that each culture had to offer. Hence, her poetry and music became an amalgamation of Asian, European, Latin, and American sentiments and rhythms. Despite all these influences, her firm internal compass remained uncompromising with respect to following the old traditional formats in poetry, which she learned in her studies of Western literature requisite to her completion of a master’s degree in English. Her sensitivity as an artist and as a composer helped her to express poignantly and effectively the very subtle nuances of emotion demanded by such a specialized art form as poetry. Furthermore, it has enabled her to write her novel, The Velvet Thorn, with clarity and precision demanded by a novel of such depth and complexity. She has performed in concert halls in the United States and abroad, including two solo concerts at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion of the Los Angeles Music Center. Her repertoire includes operatic arias and other vocal and piano masterpieces by great masters like Puccini, Schubert, Mozart, Bach, and Chopin. Such an immersion became a thoroughfare through which she wrote, allowing her imagination to soar beyond the farthest horizon, finding physicality to words and having the acuteness of perception to describe the subtlest image borne by her senses. And her artistry is still evolving. She lives with her family in Los Angeles, California.

Book preview

Murm’rings of the

Heart

A Collection of Poetry and Song Written to Inspire

Olivia Villa-Real

AuthorHouse™

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.authorhouse.com

Phone: [phone]

©

2015 Olivia Jaobsen. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,

or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 11/17/2015

ISBN: 978-1-5049-5656-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5049-5653-6 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5049-5655-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015917611

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and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock, © Dreamstime, © Shutterstock and © 123rf.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

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Contents

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Section One - Song Lyrics

A Candle Glows

I Shouldn’t Enter Your World

At One Moment in My Life

If This Isn’t Caring

Mama

Somewhere

Love Calls in the Moonlight

Once upon a Time, Once upon a Dream

Just a Smile from a Distance

Twilight Prayer

These Are the Hands

Soul Mates in Love

Thank You for This Feeling

Gift of Love

A Castle of Love

The Winner in You

Section Two - Verse Poetry

The Velvet Thorn

If

There’s Music

Children

Tucked in the Heart of a Mother

My First Baby Girl

My Angel Was Born

The Eighteenth Day of November

The Mother Daffodil

My December Child

Section Three - Prose Poetry

Autumn Leaves

The Foreboding

Gone with the Wind

Innocent Beauty of Moonlight

Emptiness

Presentiment of Doom

In Quiet Bondage

Beyond the Horizon

Black Veil Over Tinseled Lights

Pristine Innocence

A Virgin Morning

The Final Twilight Hour

Silent Desperation

Sublimity and Ecstasy

My Musings on Motherhood

Resources

Also by Olivia Villa-Real

TheVelvet Thorn – a literary novel. Available from bookstores online.

A Critical Study of Ernest Hemingway’s Philosophy of Meaningful Existence as Revealed in His Four Major Novels – a treatise. Far Eastern University, Graduate Studies Library, Manila, Philippines.

Dedicated to my beloved family—

My reservoir of inspiration

With vigilant love always,

o.v.

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Invocation

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My dear God, I offer to You as a prayer my work, my dreams and all my dearest aspirations. Thank you for all the gifts You’ve given me. Help me to show You my appreciation for them by not wasting them, but rather creating little pebbles of my art, seasoned with love, perseverance and deep personal sacrifice. May these pebbles create beauty that will be a source of joy and comfort for others, so that together, they form a Masterpiece that will be a testament to Your Love and Peace.

Olivia Villa-Real

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Preface

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As I cast a pensive glance into the distant horizon, the twilight skies shimmered in a magnificent array of colors that lit up the landscape of my creative aspirations. I listened closely, and heard the quiet murm’rings of my heart. Hence this book was born!

This book marks the culmination of a trilogy involving my original works that circle around the heart. The first of the trilogy is a novel entitled The Velvet Thorn, which epitomizes the unparalleled capacity of the heart to endure excruciating pain in the name of love. The second is a classical CD, Stirrings of the Heart, which consists of my original vocal and piano compositions. The lyrics of some of my vocal compositions are included in a section of this book, titled Song Lyrics. Most performance directions like Narration, Chorus, Verse numbers, ad-lib, and