Re: [ZESTPoets] Call of the Drum

Mon, 01 Aug 2005 02:05:12 -0700

Vivek,
 
Thanks for pointing out Margaret Atwood's poem. Found it on the web. Here goes.
 
Ciao
Rinku
 
The Woman Who Could Not Live with Her Faulty Heart

I do not mean the symbol
of love, a candy shape
to decorate cakes with,
the heart that is supposed
to belong or break;

I mean this lump of muscle
that contracts like a flayed biceps,
purple-blue, with its skin of suet,
its skin of gristle, this isolate,
this caved hermit, unshelled
turtle, this one lungful of blood,
no happy plateful.

All heart float in their own
deep oceans of no light,
wetblack and glimmering,
their four mouths gulping like fish.
Hearts are said to pound:
this is to be expected, the heart's
regular struggle against being drowned.

But most hearts say, I want, I want,
I want, I want. My heart
is more duplicitous,
though no twin as I once thought.
It says, I want, I don't want, I
want, and then a pause.
It forces me to listen,

and at night it is the infra-red
third eye that remains open
while the other two are sleeping
but refuses to say what it has seen.

It is a constant pestering
in my ears, a caught moth, limping drum,
a child's fist beating
itself against the bedsprings:
I want, I don't want.
How can one live with such a heart?

Long ago I gave up singing
to it, it will never be satisfied or lulled.
One night I will say to it:
Heart, be still,
and it will.
 



 
On 8/1/05, Vivek Narayanan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
This reminds me of a line from a Margaret Atwood poem I read some years
ago (does anyone have the whole, accurate poem?) -- where, if I remember
correctly, the beating of the heart is described as follows:

I want, I don't want
I want, I don't want

Rinku Dutta wrote:

> *Call of the Drum*   Cheek upon your chest I listen to the lub-DUB Of
> a humble drum--- Luv-U, luv-U, luv-   As The Terror ROARS Ravaging our
> hearts The little drum bleats Luv-ALL, Luv-ALL, LUV   Tanu Aug 1, 2005
> Lahore
>
> --
> "One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life: That word is love."
> ~Sophocles (496?-406 BCE)         Heartbeat
> http://images.google.com.pk/imgres?imgurl=http://www.tmc.edu/thi/systole.gif&imgrefurl=http://www.tmc.edu/thi/systole.html&h=250&w=188&sz=7&tbnid=HBXbI6u8--IJ:&tbnh=106&tbnw=79&hl=en&start=9&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dheartbeat%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26sa%3DG
> < http://images.google.com.pk/imgres?imgurl=http://www.tmc.edu/thi/systole.gif&imgrefurl=http://www.tmc.edu/thi/systole.html&h=250&w=188&sz=7&tbnid=HBXbI6u8--IJ:&tbnh=106&tbnw=79&hl=en&start=9&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dheartbeat%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26sa%3DG >
>   Lub-dub
> http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:v3a8q11oe3MJ:www.raft.net/ideas/I%2520Can%2520Hear%2520Your%2520Heartbeat.pdf+Lub+dub+heartbeat&hl=en
> <http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:v3a8q11oe3MJ:www.raft.net/ideas/I%2520Can%2520Hear%2520Your%2520Heartbeat.pdf+Lub+dub+heartbeat&hl=en >
>   http://kidshealth.org/kid/body/heart_noSW.html
>
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--
"There is no education greater than travel."
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