A HUNGRY HEART: (A COLLABORATIVE POEM SERIES #17)

A HUNGRY HEART


And I have only my hungry heart, my/ wobbly heart: I cart it everywhere I go.---Luisa A. Igloria, From, “Not Yet There”, Via Negativa

1.

It is when things are exactly
where they ought to be, that
you begin to wonder where
you might have lost yourself
or found yourself needing
all these quicksilver thoughts
of longing, of desire pulsing
through your hungry heart,
your wobbly heart, and you
wander among the debris
of past lives, old loves, fallen
dreams in crumbled houses,
carting your throbbing heart
through every dark chasm
posted with forbidding signs:
“no hearts accepted here”,
and bravely, you walk away,
still carting your defiant heart
through uncharted streets of
lost loves and wanton desire.

2.

Now, you find yourself lulled
in a spring garden as a flower
stripped of its honey colours,
a mere tendril, a bud worn
as some valediction, and still
you dream and chase the
will-o’-the-wisp, and cart your
heart, your wobbly heart,
to parts unknown where signs
forbid the chastened lover.

—Albert B. Casuga
04-26-11

COLLABORATIVE POEM PROMPTS: (1) “Not Yet There”, Via Negativa, http://www.vianegativa,us/2011/03/not-yet-there/ and (2) “Breviary”, Via Negativa, http://www.vianegativa.us/2011/04/breviary/ by Luisa A. Igloria.

This poem uses two Igloria poems as prompts and was posted in Via Negativa, 04-26-11 in response to the poem “Breviary” which is Igloria’s response to Dave Bonta’s Morning Porch 04-26-11 post.