This is my heart

[PrinceMyshkin]

This is my heart.
I whisper to it at night.
"I will find you a friend,"
I say. "You will not be alone."

Everyone you love,
I say, refreshes you,
even if they don't love you back.

Love is not a token,
I say: it is not a swap.

I will find you a friend.
You will not be alone.

[Delta40]

Feels circular Prince where you're really the best friend your heart could possibly have...

[miyako73]

This is a love(ly) poem that is not. I did not cringe while reading it. I also did not scratch my head after reading "love", the word that is taboo in some writers' vocabularies, including mine. Good one, Prince. There's longing and there's also hope, your resolve. Form-wise, I like the internal dialogues. Thinking about love or talking to one's self happens to all of us who still can think and talk.

I think.

[PrinceMyshkin]

Thank you, Delta and Miyako. But, Miyako, if we poets banish "love" from our poems, mustn't we also banish lucent, evanescent, spirit, stars, God, etc.?

[miyako73]

I don't know about that, Prince. Love is more beautiful in a text if written without its name. I think Hallmark has ruined love's textual mystique.

[Twota]

I love it, I say this to my heart too. :D

[Jerrybaldy]

alone we all are. it makes us write. it may just be the only reason. pure f ucking deparation.

[PrinceMyshkin]

I don't know about that, Prince. Love is more beautiful in a text if written without its name. I think Hallmark has ruined love's textual mystique.

That is an excellent point, Miyako, because "love," like "mother" or "native land" is assumed to guarantee a strong reaction; whereas in fact each of us has had his or her varied experiences of what these words supposedly stand for.

[Silas Thorne]

An excellent little poem.
I also like the way you present these repeated assurances you give your heart in the poem.
Regarding the use of 'love' in poems, I think it all depends on how you use the word. It's used well here. :)

[Jack of Hearts]

Yes, it's the Prince zen. How he fits it all in there nobody knows.

Although, as secondary note, reading the responses seems to be revealing many of our attitudes about the nature of poetry...



J

[PrinceMyshkin]

An excellent little poem.
I also like the way you present these repeated assurances you give your heart in the poem.
Regarding the use of 'love' in poems, I think it all depends on how you use the word. It's used well here. :)

Many thanks, and as for my own justification of the use of "love" in this poem, please see my subsequent reply to Miyako.

[PrinceMyshkin]

I don't know about that, Prince. Love is more beautiful in a text if written without its name. I think Hallmark has ruined love's textual mystique.

Addendum, to what I replied to you before. I stilll agree with you when "love" is used in the poet's own authoritative voice, but this poem is in the form of a playlet and "love" is employed by one character (myself) speaking to another, his 'heart'.

[APEist]

I love it, I say this to my heart too. :D

It's nice when you find out you're not the only one.

Use of the term "friend" instead of "partner" (etc.) is very appreciated... awesome effect.

[Virgil]

This is my heart.
I whisper to it at night.
"I will find you a friend,"
I say. "You will not be alone."

Everyone you love,
I say, refreshes you,
even if they don't love you back.

Love is not a token,
I say: it is not a swap.

I will find you a friend.
You will not be alone.

I love this Prince. Really do. "refreshes" and "not a swap" are so simple but so powerful. I can feel this. The short terse language makes it! I've missed reading your poems.

Oh and by the way, I don't find the repetition in the last two lines to be redundant. It's a reassuring and it has more weight after the "refreshes" and "not a swap."

[Hawkman]

I say, I say, I say, what do you call a writer who makes inconsistant use of quotation marks in verses?

I don't know: what do you call a writer who makes inconsistant use of quotation marks in verses?

A poet, old boy. ;)

I don't know if it was intentional Prince, but the three "I say"s took me to a place where music hall double acts performed on stage in Stalag Luft IV , and I'm curious why you started using inverted commas and then abandoned them. I think the sense of the lines would still be apparent without them in the first stanza. I also genuinely find the three "I say"s intrusive, as the only one which really needs to be there is the last one.

For me, the poem expresses lonliness, together with a perhaps vain hope for companionship. That, "even if they don't love you back," speaks volumes.

Live and be well - H