by Lawrence Spiro
This is the most unusual poetry column I have ever written. Doesn’t rhyme, has little meter and cadence. I hope you enjoy it.
Physical and emotions makes a compound of the heart and the brain.
The heart
- The right atrium receives blood from the veins and pumps it to the right ventricle.
- The right ventricle receives blood from the right atrium and pumps it to the lungs, where it is loaded with oxygen.
- The left atrium receives oxygenated blood from the lungs and pumps it to the left ventricle.
- The left ventricle (the strongest chamber) pumps oxygen-rich blood to the rest of the body. The left ventricle’s vigorous contractions create our blood pressure.
How long does this all work? Is there a limit on the number of pumps?
What can I do to save my heart? Call an electrician or a plumber?
Questions from most. But ventricles and atriums and pumping and blood and oxygen are not the complete definition of the affairs of the heart: must include the affairs of the heart.
Here and there are intimate with the heart as the heart pumps blood, and emotions to and from the brain.
If we only think of it as a gorged muscle pumping and acting on electrical impulses. But there is more that meets the I to keep it beating.
By Love, by hope, by forgiveness, by consideration and by understanding. You can extend your heart indefinitely, at least as long as eternity. Most choose to allow it to afib on its own; un-measured in happiness and irregular ventricular cadence. The heart beats against the feelings that makes it beat or stop in cadence with your emotions.
The brain
- Hypothalamus. In addition to controlling emotional responses, the hypothalamus is also involved in sexual responses, hormone release, and regulating body temperature.
- Hippocampus. The hippocampus helps preserve and retrieve memories. It also plays a role in how you understand the spatial dimensions of your environment.
- Amygdala. The amygdala helps coordinate responses to things in your environment, especially those that trigger an emotional response. This structure plays an important role in fear and anger.
- Limbic cortex. This part contains two structures, the cingulate gyrus and the parahippocampal gyrus. Together, they impact mood, motivation, and judgement.
- You have a brain so let it work without forgetting
- You have a heart so let it beat without pain
An inextricable body.
**********************************************
Daedalus’ Heart of Wax
by Willow DuBrovin
Love, a concept that I gave birth?
Perhaps why I’m undeserving of its worth.
Emotions, thoughts, gone with the draft, But I am persistent, harshly learning of the craft.
If love is not spawned, is it made, built, crafted?
I learn quickly, my hands grow callused as I grow mafted.
Each perfection is sown into the harsh leather of its creation.
But maybe this time, I will deserve his appreciation.
Love is sticky, love is unforgiving, love is relenting,
But I am careful, I am patient, I am repenting.
I can’t seem to look away, he is too bright, he is my Sun,
Each divot in the wax is a symbol of my persistence, my only one.
Love is soft, love is higher,
But the feathers build as I continue to tire. I
relish in my small successes and let them shine, I
gasp as he lets me sip his golden sky.
Love is a need, and I crave more.
Nimble fingers persist, my wings soon to be born.
They stare as me, wanting to soar,
Ignoring my exhaustion, I work even more.
Love is slippery, love is loose, love is a spree
I’ve gone too far to simply let it flee.
Though the wax weighs with quiet plea,
My wings will soon set me amongst the free.
Love is a burden, one that itches for me, I will
jump into his basking light, if he can agree.
I stride to the cliff, his radiant smile engulfing my pledge.
A face that liberates, I walk off the edge,
Love is trust, love is free,
I stare face down at the raging sea.
Trust and freedom as he catches my fall, His rays
explode, guiding above waves wishing to maul.
Love is greed, and I am greedy.
A lesson learned too late, I regret deeply.
I fly closer, seeking his touch,
His smile fuels my heart, matching my wings’ rush.
Love is confusion, love is fear,
I watch as my wings start to sear.
Tears mirror the wax drip, Seeking
his guidance, seeking grip.
Love is betrayal, and I’ve never felt it more.
The heat of his gaze is absent of the kindness it once bore.
His screeching laughter of flames soaks my ears.
Betrayal, felt in flames, fills me with fears.
Love is fast, and I failed to catch it,
The realization hits me like a mallet.
Fast as I failed to seize it, this love I’ve known,
Falling amidst my creation, it couldn’t have flown.
Love is failure, love is gone,
Do I not deserve love, as a lonely swan?
Tears hit waves before I drown,
His warmth fades, darkness devours his silent frown.
Hate is love, just as love is hate,
Chills strip me of my fever, into an icy state.
I cannot bear this sudden weight.
Shadow replaces sight, leaving me lonely and irate.
Hate is a regret, hate is void.
My conscience is present, but my body is avoid.
Leaving me with thoughts of my own plague,
My understanding of love is still so vague.
Love is a craft?
Or so I thought as my founding raft.
My heart’s silence screams in its refrain,
Regretful convictions echoes as my only gain.
Had he had not let me melt or watched me fall astray,
But instead allowed me to touch radiant lips I sway?
Would he burn me, flames stripping me of wings and scorn?
Amongst my ashes, would I find solace, amongst the love I mourn?
**********************************************
TO MY SON WHO CANNOT SLEEP
by Don Intonato for Ben
I dream,
dream, dream, dream, dream,
until the room is filled
with dreams.
I get up and open
the window and they fly out
into the night sky.
Clouds of runaway dreams,
reveries, fantasies.
Open your window
and take down a dream
from the night.
Tuck it under your head
like a pillow.
It will get you back to sleep.
I’ll come by and pick you up
in the morning.
