[Trevor Conway]

I renounce the sham romance
that so many have barbed to my flesh,

all these songs, the bland swamp
of drivel set to a perfect pitch.

I am a pulsing fist of muscle,
enticing blood from lungs,

gifting nutrients to nerve and bone,
brain and liver.

Ribs have deemed me worthy of shelter,
and yet, you’ll see me overexposed

in bastard form on cards and walls,
praised in poems like a false prophet.

All I crave
is vagrant blood,

so don’t cite me when talking of love –
attach that accolade to another organ,

and mention me only – if you must –
in doctors’ clinics and hospital beds,

always striving to keep from crying
and, above all, from declarations,

though sometimes, I might admit
there’s a kind of romance in how I work.

[Jim Ramsey]

Hi Trevor,

I think the last line is not yet good enough. I don't know if something like this is better, but it seems closer to the having the punch I would like to see:

xxxxxthough, sometimes, I might admit
xxxxxto drumming up romance simply by effort.


All the best,
Jim

[Max Goodman]

I like this description of the heart: a pulsing fist of muscle,/enticing blood from lungs,/gifting [is that the right verb?] nutrients to nerve and bone,/
brain and liver.

What's the benefit of writing this first-person from the heart's pov? It feels as though the poem replaces one fallacious way of thinking about the heart with another. That can be fruitful if it is intentional, but if the poem is doing something with that tension, I'm missing it.

FWIW.

[John Riley]

Overall, I agree with Max. It seems a little confused.

This seems like a spoken word piece. I don't know much about the genre but this may fit?

[Yves S L]

Hello Trevor,

This poem can only be written seriously from the POV of a person who cannot feel their own body and so cannot feel the locations and origins of their own emotions.

[Joe Crocker]

I also like the "pulsing fist of muscle" but I think that image deserves some more active verbs to go with it eg

I am a pulsing fist of muscle,
sucking blood from lungs,

squeezing nutrients to nerve and bone,
brain and liver.

[Yves S L]

To clarify my point of view, this is a bit like someone writing a persona poem with the stomach as N stating it should not be associated with the emotion of hunger, as if the association is something merely culturally given, and can be served as an arbitrary association.

[Max Goodman]

Originally Posted by Yves S L

This poem can only be written seriously from the POV of a person who cannot feel their own body and so cannot feel the locations and origins of their own emotions.

Originally Posted by Yves S L

this is a bit like someone writing a persona poem with the stomach as N stating it should not be associated with the emotion of hunger, as if the association is something merely culturally given, and can be served as an arbitrary association.

That analogy doesn't hold for me. The heart's connection to emotion, unlike the stomach's to hunger, does seem to me culturally given. Maybe you can feel your heart's connection to emotion and aren't just imagining that. Who am I to know? But if Trevor is unusual not to feel that connection, he isn't unique. There are at least two of us with that limitation.

My heart often (not always) beats more strongly when I feel certain emotions (a wide variety of them), just as it beats more strongly when I run or do any vigorous exercise (or, for that matter, since the stomach has been mentioned, digest a big meal), but that doesn't make it the origin of those emotions any more than it is the origin of my legs moving.

[Trevor Conway]

Hi everyone,

Thanks for yere feedback here. Lots to mull over with this one.

Trev