The heart is mighty above all things.
And no where will you know this better
than when you see this girl for the first time
and hold in your mind a picture of her
burning as a fever behind your closed
eyelids, night after restless night when moths
run into flames and fires, are consumed by suns in-
side lightbulbs. All around you the world seems
dim, seems less than it is as when
she is slowly unfolding before
your hungry eyes. Her name is a pounding fist
upon your heart, setting your ears ringing
with sweetly succulent vowels of rounding,
lilting love-melodies, sweetly haunting phantoms
emerging whole from cavernous mouths as
lipstick-shaped lexis that reverberate
across the panorama of this old television screen
this urine-stained linen sheet
that doubles as a neighborhood
cinema screen, sharing our communal
dreams. Your tongue could care less
if it burnt by this stale cigarette or the blue-smoke taste
of her huntress hair. You could care less,
you could wager less, you could
die for less. Your heart is a warrior;
it is mighty above all else. It knows-
everything is always about the girl.
It’s always about the girl.
So when you see them running after you
with guns, with swords, with fiery
spit-firing anti-aircraft missiles;
know-
bad guys can’t shoot for shit
your friendly neighborhood mutant/ super-
human (despite being divinely conflicted)
will always rescue your faith in mankind
and it will always rain on your parade
only when you feel like it
only when her mascara is waterproof
and saying (with grit teeth jaw clenched eyes on the sky)
‘I’m ready’
and all your dreams will play out Technicolor-true
and not a hair will be out of place
not a tear will go to waste;
all your long roads will lead up to this place,
this warm smile and the promise of her embrace,
this girl you could spit at dragons for, this girl
you could murder a brother for. I promise you, Shanti-goddess-music
will play (always) when you reach out to touch her…
…
and I speak these words into sieved
mouthpieces of strange phones set in forgotten
rain-rusted booths. I have not dialed the number
of the party I desire to reach because
I hope to catch you breathing
on the other end and know somewhere, you
too, are holding a phone next to your ear, listening
to the dial-tone and ‘Please enter the number
of the party you desire to reach’. I wish, like a fool,
I could hear your voice saying ‘Hey’ even though
I have not dialed a number,
I could not dial a number, even
if I had one for you. Your silence
keeps me gambling with words
that spill into such lachrymose promises
I will live for you I will wait for you I will be here for I will be for you I will die for you
because
the heart is mighty above all else
this heart that strives for the girl
its always about the girl, you see,
its always about the girl.
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Comments
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what we choose is never what we really need
*VampireWriters|=PoetryPlease|*Writers-Workshop|=ScribeSanctuary
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For Gaza [link]
A song for Gaza [link]
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what we choose is never what we really need
*VampireWriters|=PoetryPlease|*Writers-Workshop|=ScribeSanctuary
Good stuff, good stuff.
thanks very much!
--
what we choose is never what we really need
*VampireWriters|=PoetryPlease|*Writers-Workshop|=ScribeSanctuary
If this were in any other form than poetry I could call it such and thus attempt a compliment worthy of such a piece. But in saying such now I would only be redundant. And redundancy is only redundancy upon redundancy when there is only one true thing to call it. And when there is only one true thing to call what is laid out before you, despite the name's true shallow meaning, you must call it thus. And thus I will call this what it is. This is truly poetry.
--
"Everything should be as simple as it can be, and no simpler."
- Albert Einstein
--
what we choose is never what we really need
*VampireWriters|=PoetryPlease|*Writers-Workshop|=ScribeSanctuary
--
I am just a collection of hypothetical subatomic particles [link]
thanks very much. this is the longest poem i've ever written.
--
what we choose is never what we really need
*VampireWriters|=PoetryPlease|*Writers-Workshop|=ScribeSanctuary
Yes, so it appears to be. And had it not been about the girl many of the most precious works of art wouldn’t have ever existed. But than again, does it worth it?
This ending of the poem is the strongest point in it, lingering long after the last words are read. It all opens with the very simple and down to earth first stanza –
the heart is mighty above all things and no where
will you know this better than when you
see the girl for the first time
and hold in your mind a picture of her
This prologuesque stanza also portrays many of the main issues in this poem – the lack of consistent punctuation, lack of capital letters, that feels really missing in this poem, and sometimes long over-run lines. But this stanza also holds an exquisite example for the beauty in this poem, the simple and elegantly straight language, the lyrical nature of this poem, the gentle spirit.
The second stanza shines on another beautiful thing regarding this poem -
… when moths
run into flames and fires, are consumed by suns in-
side lightbulbs…
The imagery and metaphors, penetrating through the reader’s skin, permeate into the mind and imagination and creates mesmerizing scenes and worlds. This is one of the strongest qualities of :deelmara:’s writing – it’s always underneath your skin.
Another interesting aspect is the way some words are cut out of the last line of some stanzas and glued as the opening of the next, coloring the following stanza in a new color. For example –
dim, seems less than it is as when
she is slowly unfolding before
your hungry eyes. Her name is a pounding fist
upon your heart, setting your ears ringing
You can actually feel the way the word Dim shades the entire stanza, giving it a different feel, a new perspective and somewhat darker atmosphere.
But this poem is far from being perfect, it has many issues with flow, punctuation and such. For example -
dreams. Your tongue could care less
if it burnt by this stale cigarette or the blue-smoke taste
of her huntress hair, flying wild as she stands alone
upon her father’s imprisoning balcony. You could
The conjunctions and punctuation on this stanza creates clumsiness and disturbs the reader, plus stopping the flow. Maybe by dropping some of them or rephrasing a bit it could be clearer.
Although this poem holds so much into it, there’s also the problem of it being sometimes lasting and not clear. Personally I think that this poem could be even better, much better, and that the strangeness of it is dimed by the interfering issues that could be easily solved with few more editing session. I find this poem to be a butterfly that still needs to burst out of the cocoon, and eagerly look forward to it.
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Some days I write those words, others they write me.