The chanson Belle, Bonne, Sage by Baude Cordier, written in the shape of a heart, in the Chantilly Codex. This is one of two dedicatory pieces placed at the beginning of the older (late 14th century) corpus, probably to replace the original first fascicle, which is missing courtesy of Baude Cordier – Chantilly Manuscript under CC BY-SA 3.0

Your heart, like an etheric record, or
An archeological dig awaiting the
Sacrifice of your renegade fieldwork
To focus on the excavation of your lost
Self, your singular clay tablets labeled,
Ready to be freed from the depths
From life’s mayhem and mystery
To reveal your true heart knowledge
Heart Knowledge, © Jamie Dedes

Heart Mantra

gate gate pāragate pārasaṃgate bodhi svāhā / gone, gone, everyone gone to the other shore, awakening, so be it

Heart

Heart, with its penchant for
Hoarding the wins and losses
Casts about and waits for the day
You wade through life’s detritus
And find yourself reframing
Seeking your true story with
Your new clarity and you
Discover meaning at the core
Of your history, as though
Some inner sculptor has been
Chiseling away at the excesses
Revealing the truest you, and
Rousing to that greater duty
Your clearer site and gratitude
Enkindles psalms to enshrine
Your mother’s call to dinner
Your child’s cry in the night
Your descent from the cosmic heart

© 2019, Jamie Dedes

WEDNESDAY WRITING PROMPT:

Today’s prompt suggests exploring what is perhaps our most ancient, universal, abiding, and evocative symbol: ♥ Heart! ♥

  • please submit your poem/s by pasting them into the comments section and not by sharing a link
  • please submit poems only, no photos, illustrations, essays, stories, or other prose

PLEASE NOTE:

Poems submitted through email or Facebook will not be published.

IF this is your first time joining us for The Poet by Day, Wednesday Writing Prompt, please send a brief bio and photo to me at thepoetbyday@gmail.com to introduce yourself to the community … and to me :-). These are partnered with your poem/s on first publication.

PLEASE send the bio ONLY if you are with us on this for the first time AND only if you have posted a poem (or a link to one of yours) on theme in the comments section below.  

Deadline:  Monday, October 21 by 8 pm Pacific Time. If you are unsure when that would be in your time zone, check The Time Zone Converter.

Anyone may take part Wednesday Writing Prompt, no matter the status of your career: novice, emerging or pro.  It’s about exercising the poetic muscle, showcasing your work, and getting to know other poets who might be new to you.

You are welcome – encouraged – to share your poems in a language other than English but please accompany it with a translation into English.

Jamie Dedes. I’m a freelance writer, poet, content editor, and blogger. I also manage The BeZine and its associated activities and The Poet by Day jamiededes.com, an info hub for writers meant to encourage good but lesser-known poets, women and minority poets, outsider artists, and artists just finding their voices in maturity. The Poet by Day is dedicated to supporting freedom of artistic expression and human rights.  Email thepoetbyday@gmail.com for permissions, commissions, or assignments.

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Recent and Upcoming in Digital Publications Poets Advocate for Peace, Justice, and Sustainability, How 100,000 Poets Are Fostering Peace, Justice, and Sustainability, YOPP! * The Damask Garden, In a Woman’s Voice, August 11, 2019 / This short story is dedicated to all refugees. That would be one in every 113 people. * Five poems, Spirit of Nature, Opa Anthology of Poetry, 2019 * From the Small Beginning, Entropy Magazine (Enclave, #Final Poems), July 2019 * Over His Morning Coffee, Front Porch Review, July 2019 * Three poems, Our Poetry Archive, September 2019

“Every pair of eyes facing you has probably experienced something you could not endure.”  Lucille Clifton

13 Comments

  1. Respected Jamie Ji

    Heart To Heart ~ Dil-e Nadaan O Innocent Heart

    O Heart I never saw you nor ever will,
    you give me life keep me pure and strong-
    do you hold me or do I keep you?
    Others told me that you do,

    I must be grateful
    O heart you were with me, I knew that day
    when I gave you away, I could hear your
    sound, but felt you were not there, you
    sustain me constantly without rest in the
    Bony cage and give me the best-
    I must be grateful
    With a faint rhythmic whispering beat
    I heard my inner seat of the will, speak-
    I keep the epignosis for you , the intellect,
    feelings and spring of all desire, you keep

    me clean and tranquil , without ire
    Fill me not with indigestible oily food
    nor pride or deceit or sheer laziness
    nor hate nor envy nor revenge or
    greediness, keep me joyful and good.
    You must be grateful
    O heart my unseen life , keep me warm
    with love and strength, fill me with care
    that I may with others share, drench me in
    peace that I may spread and sprinkle everywhere
    O Human then use the knowledge that I
    carry within, the line between life and
    death is tender fine and thin….
    work in time do not be late
    lest loss become your final fate.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  4. Hi Jamie
    This may not format (correct line-breaks) correctly, but here goes:
    It seems ok ??

    The Heart of John Ruskin

    [part-found poem]

    1. Childhood

    Mr Runciman’s instruction sustains disgrace
    in my long memory. He gave no indulgence
    to the extraordinary gift I had of drawing delicately
    with the pen-point. Yet he taught me much.
    He taught me perspective and composition;
    he cultivated in me the habit of looking
    for the essential points in nature so as
    to abstract them decisively. I find my quite first
    sketchbook, an extremely inconvenient upright
    small octavo in mottled and flexible cover; the paper
    pure white and ribbedly gritty, filled with outlines
    irregularly defaced by impulsive efforts at finish.
    I have set aside for preservation the first really fine
    sketch I ever made from nature being No.1
    of a street in Sevenoaks for which I had no praise.

    2. Art Tutor

    Imagine this dialogue if you wish:

    Please sir make artists of us.

    I could as soon tell you how to
    manufacture an ear of wheat
    as to make a good artist of you.
    Perfect art proceeds from the heart;
    imperfect art proceeds from the grasping hand.

    There are two paths; see how the lotus
    is rooted in the mud. Don’t quit this living
    stem; quitting root and branch
    leads to death; the other dark path.

    First: seize some natural facts, say
    a silvery necklace-web
    and the glistening jewel in its centre,
    and let them lead to the life
    of the crowned spirit. Make
    your choice boldly and avoid seeing
    your manufactured face. Learn to belong
    to yourself and give the gift of a flower
    to a stranger.

    3. Pedagogical

    Have we only to copy, and again copy,
    for ever and ever, the imagery of the universe?
    Not so. We have work to do upon it,
    but the work is not to improve, but explain.
    The infinite universe is unfathomable; every
    human creature must spell out each part, extricating
    it from infinity as one gathers a violet out of grass,
    making the flower visible in a new way.

    Here’s a painter casting his whole soul into space,
    content to be quiet amongst the rustling leaves
    and sparkling grass, and purple-cushioned heather;
    simple-minded as a child, his brush lovingly
    dropping pigment into rose-suffused clouds,
    now flying with the wild wind and sifted spray,
    now climbing with the purple sunset, now resting
    among modest grasses and humble snails;
    but always working with the passion of nature’s
    freedom burning in his own heart.

    *
    Eric Nicholson is a retired art teacher and lives in the NE of England. He blogs at:
    https://erikleo.wordpress.com

    Like

    Reply

  5. schrodinger’s heart

    with an imagined ribcage like the box
    schrodinger kept his imagined cat in
    let us bring to thought-experiment life
    a heart that is not only both alive and dead
    but also both stone and gold
    both weeping and exultant
    hard and soft
    sleevebound and hidden
    light and leaden

    but instead of poison
    and coinflip
    there would be an unknown substance
    and rheostatic delivery
    perhaps love potion #9
    perhaps oil of cloves uncapped in a forest glade
    perhaps the memory of shunning
    or the sight of a breathtaking face
    and the release would not be binary all-or-nothing
    but any intensity from barest hint
    to full blast

    the physical heart of an unborn human being
    may be heard through the uterine wall
    and its resting rate is quicker than that
    of most of the born
    if my unborn daughter was typical
    and as i listened to her rapid-blessed vitality
    it seemed to me that her heart not only beat
    but spoke
    a repeated word of yearning:
    wishwishwishwishwishwishwish

    some day some ultrasoundish nanotech
    may make available to us
    a means to free our own schrodinger’s hearts
    from their ribcage confines
    and reveal to us via virtual emoji and annotation
    a snapshot of the exact shape and substance
    and level of toxicity
    or salubrity
    how alive
    how free
    and how
    attuned
    are our
    hearts

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  6. with all of my corazon from LA xo

    “heart of the matter”

    i love going to the hills
    atop Silver Lake
    where i can see Hollywood
    my home my western shore
    my dusty concrete paths
    winding with a promise
    to all that we are alive
    in the City of Illusions
    and that life is no illusion after all
    paradox is my goddess
    and Los Angeles my church
    my habit was my pope
    and my grit was my curse
    perhaps we all strive
    to go back home to reconcile
    the hemorrhaging broken vein
    and that’s all we want

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

  8. ..my heart..
    my heart is quiet

    i do not feel it beating yet

    the rhythm is there

    may heart is silent

    while all comes well around

    yet roused it will sound

    louder

    come the other days

    come the sadder ways

    heart is there just there, look

    &

    i think my soul is thereabouts

    where the feelings come and pain

    or gain

    quietness

    again

    they say it is the brain that does the thinking

    yet

    we may also listen to our heart

    carefully

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

  9. Hi Jamie,

    Here’s my third response:

    My Heart

    Bolt upright awake at 2am.
    My heart pumps
    its cage door.
    Asks to be let out.

    Rapid breath tries
    to bolster the door,
    heaves and heaves
    until heart calms.

    Breath sighs slows
    head on pillow.
    The door is bruised,
    sleep uneven.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

  10. Hi Jamie,

    Here’s my second response:

    Their Hearts

    Their long heart stretches
    from sunrise to sunset
    from moonrise to moonset
    arcs skies as if travels
    to another world.

    Their short heart blinks once
    at sunrise and at sunset,
    at moonrise and moonset
    never arcs across skies
    stays where it is.

    Their great value heart,
    meets their expectations,
    is thoughtful of others
    tells them how they’re doing,
    and how they might improve
    is open to suggestions and feedback,
    especially when things go wrong.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

Thank you!