On Heartbreaks, Heart Math, and Finding Hearts

What is a heartbreak? Does a heart really break when a loving relationship dies, or someone really dies and leaves us all alone? California poet, Karineh Mahdessian published an anthology of unhappy love poems by women (including one of mine), and followed it by an anthology of unhappy love poems by men, and is now working on the third anthology of poems written by match pairs, a female and a male poet, that have not met before. The results will be available in a new anthology and we will see where all these heartbreaks take us.

If it is only into whining - "poor me, pity me, my baby left me..." - that's not much of a lesson for the rest of us. "So what..." a bystander could shrug and say, bluntly: "get your act together and find a new love, this is not the end of the world...deal with it..."  But what if it were? What if that unique loving connection of two lovers, their hearts beating in unison, created a higher-level value in the universe, what if stars and galaxies were born of this love?

The Institute of Heart Math tells us that our hearts have so much neurons around them they actually have their own "brains" that are guarding and guiding our bodies, our whole selves, without conscious involvement of the real brain. The rhythm of the heart influences our thinking.

The electromagnetic field created by the heart synchronizes with other hearts and creates a powerful energy field.  The magnetic field of a human heart can be measured several fields from the body. The negative emotions create a chaotic pattern in this field, while positive, calm, loving emotions create a smooth, coherent pattern that leads to wellness. Coherent rhythm of the heart based on positive emotions of happiness, acceptance, love, gratitude, serenity, helps the brain create innovative ideas and make good decisions.

In pursuit of positive energy of the heart, I wrote many blog entries on love, roses, and St. Valentine's Day - and gathered the links on a separate page: Love and Roses.  As a dedicated "love-poetry" writer, I have committed the unforgivable sin, unforgivable, that is, for a professional, academic poet - write about emotion, write about the four-letter word, love... Yet, the proliferation of romance books and country songs tells us something about this "dirty word" that serious academic poets cannot use or reflect about if they want to be taken seriously by other serious academic poems and have their work reviewed in serious academic poetry journals. That is: Love is. Love is a force of life.

No, Love is the force of life. Love is the light of life. Love and Light are intertwined: the more loving you are the more enlightened you become. If you reach true wisdom, you also reach true compassion. It all goes together, intertwined, like the couples of humans melded into angelic creatures of eight limbs floating around in Swedenborg's heaven. The union of opposites, merging compassion into wisdom, love into light.

Before we become any sorts of angels and start floating around in any sort of heaven, there's the earth, the here and now. Here's a multitude of loves to be dealing with: love of mothers, love of fathers, love of children, love of grandparents, romantic love, familial love, compassionate love. Love is the glue that holds society together, from a couple, through family into infinity. We are nothing without love. How then, the all-mighty serious academic poets decided that it is not cool, not appropriate, not done, to be sentimental, to be romantic, to be loving in poetry?

If that's the case, I'd rather be non-serious, non-academic and not-mighty poet. I'd rather write cute little trifles that bring smiles to my readers' faces, that make them say, at the end of the reading sigh, all in unison: aaaahhh... How cute is that! Don't you known that this "aaaahhh" means something good? Better than a chocolate heart? More powerful than a gunshot? This is "heart math" - the focus of thoughts and feelings on the one good thing in this life and in the next: Love. Love itself. Love in us. Love around us. Love.

Kathabela Wilson recently edited a new "Poetry Corner" for the Colorado Boulevard magazine, Reflections on Relationships, and added a fragment of my poem "Adorable" to a set of three reflections on romantic love.  She illustrated her story with two of my "heart" photos - that I have been collecting for quite a while, snapping pictures of various heart-shaped things, from cactus, to spray-painted contours on the sidewalk reproduced above.

Since Kathabela only used a portion of my poem, I thought it would be nice to reprint the whole here, in anticipation of February, the Month of Love.

Adorable

… is the word for you.

Yes, you’ve heard me right.

Like a kitten? More a baby golden lab,

A cuddly puppy with huge chocolate eyes

Looking at me with wild affection.

Excited, impatiently waiting to be hugged.

Adorable – as in the French perfume

“J’adore” – but not the flowery kind,

Rather the musky spice

Of your naked body.

Gentle, shy, hopeful, fit, boisterous, 
Persistent, singing carols out of tune,

With muscles flexing under 
The smooth skin. Ready for the home run.

Nice, not naughty, but nice

Through and through.

How do I know? The word appeared

While I was driving down the Five

At night, dozing off, stopping for naps,

Moving on in a blur of hours, miles,

Hills, exit signs and darkness.

I was rushing to be home

When you called. This word floated up

Through the fog of exhaustion

In the lunar landscape of bare hills

Near Avenal State Prison,

The strange topology of your dreams.

Sensuous, sweet, exotic,
Defiant, witty, bewildering,

Alive, soo alive –

Yes, you’ve heard me right.

I've got just one word for you,

For the whole you –

Adorable

© 2015 by Maja  Trochimczyk  (January 2015)

The Tanka Poets on Site had earlier this month a chance to respond to Kathabela's prompt on "romantic relationships, coupling" - with a beautiful artwork by Susan Dobay.  I wrote another sweet little trifle based on the image of loving bliss that Susan so masterfully captured. 

In the meadow 

sparkling with topaz, 

sapphires and opals

your kiss 

gives me wings

On Irony and Love Songs with Grapefruit and Pomegranate

Some people… wrap themselves in a thick blanket of irony of sarcasm and greet every expression of sentiment or affection with a sneer. We’ve all seen our share of these tough guys and gals, who curse or ridicule every expression of what really matters. “How banal, how boring!” they say, when they hear a sweet love poem, like the one below (first published in the Emerging Urban Poets 2010 Calendar). I remember, I was like that, too, deeply wounded and hiding my pain under a mask of worldly indifference. There was no hope, no future, only the reward for work done in the present. All love declarations I heard were a gigantic lie. The Universe was wrong, all around me. We lived in Hell. Or so I thought.  In my new life vision the Hell part has been upgraded to the level of Purgatory, the place of atonement, relentless testing, endless life exams. Yet, there is hope, there is love, and there are glimpses of Heaven.

The concept of “irony” (from the Greek term εἰρωνεία eirōneía, “pretended ignorance”) is a great invention of romantic heroes, starting from Lord Byron, who protected their vulnerability with an armor of disaffection, finding themselves alienated from the whole world. It still is a useful literary device, but why is it wrong to be ironic in life? To spend your life so well armored, that no real emotion may pierce it? That’s exactly why. This separation from others, this distance, alienation, is the plunge of the soul into the emptiness of a spiritual void. Ugly things become possible: indifference, cruelty, unwillingness to help others, to care for anyone at all, but your own career goals or physical comfort. 

I was going to say I “hate” irony but that’s not true, I do not hate anything, nor anyone. I have pity instead. I consciously cultivate in myself an ability to be filled with love and compassion for everyone. (Do I fail in that? Of course, but it is not giving up that matters…) The moral choice of refusing to be ironic, in life or art, may have unpleasant consequences. Some “real” poets would think me silly, and my love poetry sappy and trite, as I happily write a next sweet line while listening to the rich mezzosoprano of Patsy Cline or Ella Fitzgerald, warm as liquid honey: “I’ll be loving you… always… with the love that’s true… always….” 

These words were once addressed to a real person, just as my encounter in the garden really happened… but I don’t think we need to know such details, to feel refreshed and nourished by love.

The bitter-sweet pink grapefruit and the baby pomegranates from my garden are a perfect illustration of our topic for today.

A Portrait in Brackets

               “… you promise eternity almost, from the embrace.”

                     Reiner Maria Rilke, The Second Elegy, Duino Elegies

I love every hair on your head

every wrinkle, the round scar

in the middle of your forehead

like Cain’s mark – you are

the chosen one, the untouchable

The little freckles on your nose

shine – endearing, childlike

It was supposed to be

summertime when they came

Here’s summer all the time, already

My love stirs for your full, half-open lips

waiting for my kisses, as I caress

the sharp contours of your cheeks –

I hold them in my cupped hands

looking straight into your eyes

There is no world

only us and the birdsong

at noon in my garden

I love the quiet confidence

of your fingers, skillful hands

like my father’s – solid, able

to fix things, take care of me

I touch your skin, tracing a line

down the nose, soft lips, and chin

I brush against the prickles

of your goatee, before reaching

a sweet spot on your neck

Below your shoulders, under

the smoothness of hard muscles

the bell of your heart welcomes me

The blood sings in your veins, love

surges towards me – I do I do I do

I rest my head on your chest

and listen to your heart

that beats and beats and never

stops playing the music 

© 2009 by Maja Trochimczyk. Published in 2010 Calendar, Emerging Urban Poets, Pasadena.

A Lesson for My Daughter

After a ruby-colored glass of Merlot

I told my daughter the secret of the Universe.

I solved it at noon, by the river

Questions, as I thought, do not matter

The right answers to life are “Yes”

And “I Love You”

If you build a circle of “Yes” all around

Affirming who you really are

You will be safe

If you say “I Love You” to everyone

near you –  very quietly, so they can’t hear

but you know

You will walk in a sphere of gladness

That no insult or curse

May pierce

You will find yourself hidden deeply

Where love blossoms, laughter bubbles

And joy overflows

© 2006 by Maja Trochimczyk 

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This article and two poems are published in the June issue of The Voice of the Village.

Photos from my garden - grapefruit and pomegranate.