experimental poem (kinda cringe)

Okay, so I would say I was partly inspired to write this by Sir Philip Sidney's "Astrophil and Stella," but that really overhypes this and will make you have very high expectations for it. However, this is meant to be a poem about someone getting absolutely devastated by love. And it can either be read as 13 short poems or one long poem. This is an experimental form. Also, an intercultural romance theme is explored here. A possible title for this piece could be "rey de mi corazon." Enjoy!

rey de mi corazón (experimental)

i. 

I was not a pretty sight to look at when

the tears wouldn’t stop falling and

I cursed my fate every day,

hair thinning, heart breaking, starving myself,

As once again, someone I who I thought I would have forever, left,

But you loved me even when I felt hopeless,

I didn’t know it then, 

Back when I owned no elegant dresses,

My neck and hands were never bejeweled,

No one heaped praises upon me as they do now on

my onyx eyes and the way my hair glistens

or the verses I write and the things my hands create,

But you wanted me when 

there was nothing worthy of your gaze

Or your listening,

My grief was so great

that it silenced me,

And knocked the paintbrush out of my hands

The dreams out of my mind

ii.

You see me smile more now,

But I’m still empty,

You think I have depth but,

I’m only like an endless chasm

to be filled with your voice, your love,

I’ve always been hollow 

but the promise of your touch

could heal the wound of my heart

that you saw agape yet never flinched from 

iii. 

You came upon me so suddenly,

If things had been just a little different,

With the Fates trying a new pattern in their knitting,

We would never have met,

It was like you wandered into the woods without a map,

And found me as I wept by a stream,

So the sound of it trickling down the rocks could conceal 

the sound of my sniffling,

I hoped my tears would merge with the rain,

But instead of fleeing from this dark being of woe,

You embraced me

Under the cloud that thundered above my head

iv. 

Now, rey de mi corazón, come rest your head upon my lap,

As I stroke your hair and tell you the tale of a warrior and maiden,

Who you say could have been just like us,

She

Could not pass through the village

Without wishing to escape the gaze of

Men who were more like cockroaches

In the taverns,

Who beheld her 

Reddened lips

Her black hair shining 

From being washed with fermented rice milk,

Under her porcelain mask

There once was a face

Less perfect

But less bitter,

And she thought remaining invisible

Would have been preferable to this

And he? 

What of the warrior, you ask, no, you beg,

Well, he could hardly move under the weight of his armour,

Or was it his sorrow?

Sometimes he thought it would have been better 

To have been ridiculed as a weakling

Than to have turned into this thing

That causes vain, silly girls to giggle at his approach,

Mesmerized by the glint of his sword,

Expecting to hear tales of his feats,

But they’re disappointed 

When it turns out

He never sharpened his storytelling skills,

And there’s no way for him to tell them that

He feels as though he sold his own soul,

They both would have wept at the perfect line of verse, would have painted landscapes and arranged flowers, would have read the chronicles of the empire not to celebrate the conquests but to lament what was lost,

They,

Happened to pass by the same pond one day,

Though most days are the same for them,

And there is hardly a relief from

Their loneliness

That being surrounded by admirers never cured,

But the lotuses looked lovely,

The heron’s feathers demanded careful thought,

About what colour to use for them in a painting,

There warrior and maiden glimpsed each other,

For the very first time,

Annoyed that the other had interrupted their solitude, 

They continued on their way

When you begin to protest this ending,

It will be the perfect time to kiss you, 

Satisfied that I’ve moved someone who pretends to be flint-hearted,

I’ll hold you and be amazed

That someone who trains to kill by day

Could have such lovely, youthful innocence on his face at night,

Wrapped in beauty like a delicate flower,

Who Venus herself would have lost her wits over

When you hug me back even tighter, I’ll know

Cupid’s arrows pierced through the armor of a son of Mars

v. 

The Christian scholar honours

The philosophy of Greek pagans

As the Sufi mystic

Considers the writings of brahmins worthwhile

There is more respect between

Different civilizations

Than king and queen of the same domain

More understanding between those

Who speak different tongues

Than the sun and moon

Could ever have for each other 

vi. 

Why don’t you have a seat in the kitchen, meri jaan?

As I knead the dough for the chapatis,

I’ll spellbind you with

Tales I’ve heard of the bloodthirsty gods of your ancestors

and the blue-skinned ones of mine,

Would you forgive me for idolatry, mi amor?

You must know I’m just as moved as you are by

That most praiseworthy woman,

the virgin whose womb brought forth

the one who created the stars,

But I would still burn in a fire for you,

I would still be a sacrifice unto you 

vii. 

I don’t want the sun and moon,

You bring no flowers,

Write no sonnets,

Strum no guitars,

But your love’s more steadfast than

Any artist who may try to deceive me,

I could never be ensnared by their glittering lies

As they drain the life out of memorized verse

Your love’s not birdlike but quiet,

It needs no declarations,

Yet to them, love’s a grand word,

Their favourite trope,

From stories they’ve read of Tristan and Iseult,

Pressing rosebuds between the pages,

It’s true they do not lack knowledge of the Middle Ages,

But they’ll never have an ounce of your courage

Until they understand this,

They’ll always appear silly 

When they attempt to embody chivalry

Your love’s like fossilized shells 

or dragonflies in amber,

Not like the delicate petals

That will wilt someday

Your warmth endures

While their promises wash away

viii. 

How many times have I dreamed of running away?

Assimilating into a foreign culture, forgetting the past, bathing in Lethe or perhaps

Slithering away in the form of a snake, I’ve always wished I could just shed this skin,

submerging myself as an alligator in a swamp,

Nevermind, you make me forget my own name

And I could always disappear into you 

I want you with an appetite that scares me

How have you made me unleash 

A feral, primeval, reptilian longing

That this thing we call civilization 

Can never contain?

ix. 

God has blessed your country with the southwestern desert, the most mesmerizing place on earth,

I do not understand how someone can look at it and say

We need to test nuclear bombs here and we need

The hideousness of paramilitary forces

To desecrate Nature’s harmony

Can the lone saguaro cactus against the sun

With its lifespan of two centuries

Ever forget these crimes?

See how everything in nature is interconnected.

I thought I beheld a Vishnu temple,

Look how Nature carved an Oriental pagoda herself on a rocky elevation!

This land is just as romantic as the East

And in your bloodline there is

Fasting shaman chewing peyote, austere friar carrying books, jaguar warrior wearing a plumed helmet, intrepid conquistador with a lust for gold,

No, I was not born here but

Descriptions of Paradise had reached my ears,

And I no longer doubt they were real

x. 

I want your love to be like one of those hardy perennials, 

so be careful about which plant you get for me

The golden barrel cactus may be the best,

I want a cactus, not flowers

Were you to get me one I would

Protect it as fiercely as if it were

My firstborn son, Cedric IV

But I know that it would need me even less than you would

I remember buying a cactus once

From a Home Depot somewhere in a dreary Canadian suburb

And I could not believe my eyes when

A tiny lizard emerged from the soil of that pot

Where was she taken from?

She ran off outside somewhere,

The only one of her kind in this land,

Perhaps she was crushed to death, 

perhaps she shriveled up

In the cold with a broken heart,

I could hardly comprehend

The awfulness of her fate

xi.

I gather flowers for him 

though he does not seem to appreciate their beauty

or know of their meaning

The poinsettia, the Adonis flower,

The Pendant Amaranth, which he does not know

Was once called “my-love-lieth-a-bleeding”

for it looks like the blood bursting out of

a sacrificial heart

like what gushes out of 

a cacao pod when it’s crushed

But how can I not bring him these things

While I’m here on earth?

As long as I live 

I’ll replace the flowers every time they wilt,

I’d toil in a garden for my love if only

I could be rewarded by glimpses of him 

xii.

Ever since I’ve lived here, I’ve always had to hear Canadians bemoan and bewail

The lack of a proper springtime in our country, the fact that there is no season of love

No rebirth and renewal, only the grey slush from the melting snowbanks 

a return to the general dreariness of suburban life, nothing to celebrate

surviving the harsh winter that tested the faith of black-robed missionaries 

Weakened by starvation and scurvy as they feared dying unloved in this hostile land

Yes, Pan the satyr would never see reason to dance here as he did in Arcadia,

Your heart’s like the barren trees here so you’d fit right in while mine’s like

 the desert sunrises that you don’t realize you’ve been so lucky to have been bedazzled by 

The ones that are the same colours as the petals of blanket flowers, I’m sure you remember

Seeing them many times, so how is it that I, winter-hardened as I am, can be more like

The refreshing cactus fruit, the flute song over windswept sand, than you are?

xiii.

Sometimes when your strong arms encircle me,

I still feel lonely,

Like that time when my friends turned away

From me, a being of flesh and blood and soul,

To admire an artist’s portrait of a woman

Cold and flat and drawn on a wall

Your hands are on me but your mind is elsewhere

And if you’ve never felt a desire to protect me, it’s because

You were always meant to invade my heart 

What an ill-equipped fortress it was!