heart

Close to the Heart ~ haibun

/ Ken Gierke / rivrvlogr / 54 Comments

Close to the Heart

Specialists tell me it’s not all there, my interatrial septum. Blood that should be routed to my lungs to be filtered can, instead, be passed through that barrier. Flow in one direction can cause oxygen-rich blood to join blood going to the lungs, overtaxing them. Flowing in the other direction, blood that needs to be filtered by the lungs will join blood destined for the brain, which can lead to mayhem.

More than sixty-five years of my life passed before this was discovered. By a stroke of luck, my one stroke was minor. When it passed through the hole in my heart, a tiny clot that could have come from any injury did reach my brain, but its effect was minor. The hole can be closed with surgery, but with a high risk of complications due to my age – so I accept this defect as a part of my whole.

sparrow drinks
from fresh fallen rain
leaving rings

This is my response to Haibun Monday 1/30/23: Heart

Per Wikipedia:

Atrial septal defect (ASD) is a congenital heart defect in which blood flows between the atria (upper chambers) of the heart. Some flow is a normal condition both pre-birth and immediately post-birth via the foramen ovale; however, when this does not naturally close after birth it is referred to as a patent (open) foramen ovale (PFO). It is common in patients with a congenital atrial septal aneurysm (ASA) – a bulging in the septum (or barrier) between the atria, which I also have.

Image
Detailed chambers of the heart & PFO illustration – © Mayo Clinic
(click image to see larger view in new tab)

Read another poem about my PFO here.

The Intent of Moonlight and Ethereal Synapses

/ Ken Gierke / rivrvlogr / 15 Comments

 

The Intent of Moonlight and Ethereal Synapses

A haze struggles to dim a light traveling
the distance that binds two bodies.

Our growing world of disconnect, challenged
by invisible connections. Clouds shift,

strain to cast shadows, oblivious to the aura
framing them. Different wavelengths of light,

thoughts conflicting, gelling. Powerless
to impede, branches sway their hips to its pull,

the flow from one chamber to the next echoing
tidal forces, defying the disconnect, absorbing

those wavelengths in a way not imagined
but realized. The embrace of affirmation, a kiss.

 

This is from a reading at The Gumbo Bottoms Single Pot Still Poetry Society … Gumbo Bottoms Ale House, Jefferson City, MO (09 Jan 2023).

First appearing in easing the edges: a collection of everyday miracles, edited by D Ellis Phelps, The Intent of Moonlight and Ethereal Synapses is now included in my poetry collection, Glass Awash, published by Spartan Press.

 

How a Heart Heals ~ quadrille

/ Ken Gierke / rivrvlogr / 16 Comments

How a Heart Heals

Long held in self-imposed darkness,
removed from all past pain,
a heart boldly wills itself to open
to possibilities, that light of day
might reveal a world open to it,
return to it a joy long lost,
that it might once more know love.

 

This is my response to Q44 #167 – To BOLD-ly Go,
the prompt from De Jackson at dVerse ~ Poets Pub,
which is to use a form of the word bold in a Quadrille – a 44-word poem
(excluding title), with no required meter or rhyme.

 

Heartbeat of America ~ Cadralor ~ American Sentence

/ Ken Gierke / rivrvlogr / 45 Comments

Heartbeat of America

A well-oiled machine does not have to mean a well-oiled environment.

As a citizen of this great land, it’s your right to dig your own grave.

Opposites may attract, but not so much when they’re at each other’s throats.

The intent to bring harm upon others is not an oath worth keeping.

The heartbeat of America is sadly in need of CPR.

The prompt at Meet the Bar with the Cadralor + Nobel Prize, hosted by Björn at dVerse ~ Poets Pub is to write a Cadralor, a poetry form co-created by Lori Howe, Christopher Cadra and Mary Carroll-Hackett. The rules of the form, as stated at Gleam: Journal of the Cadralor:

“The Cadralor is a poem of 5, unrelated, numbered stanzaic images, each of which can stand alone as a poem, is fewer than 10 lines, and ideally constrains all stanzas to the same number of lines. Imagery is crucial to cadralore: each stanza should be a whole, imagist poem, almost like a scene from a film, or a photograph. The fifth stanza acts as the crucible, alchemically pulling the unrelated stanzas together into a love poem. By “love poem,” we mean that your fifth stanza illuminates a gleaming thread that runs obliquely through the unrelated stanzas and answers the compelling question: “For what do you yearn?”

My poem probably is shorter than expected, and I suppose I’ve stood the form on its head by using an American Sentence for each of the stanzas.

Image (layered): surefirecpr.com & vectorstock.com

This Heart

/ Ken Gierke / rivrvlogr / 24 Comments

 This Heart

Neither glass nor stone,
not impervious nor shattered,
the heart that beats deep within me
has known the ache of life’s trials
and the elation of reward revealed
when most needed. The greatest
of those rewards was found
when it started beating for you.

 

This poem is my response to Quadrille #137: Throwing Poet Stones, the prompt from De Jackson at dVerse ~ Poets Pub, which is to use a form of the word stone in a 44-word poem, with no required meter or rhyme.

The stone and the glass hearts in the photo were found on the shore of Lake Ontario
(Click image for larger view in new tab)

Wholehearted

/ Ken Gierke / rivrvlogr / 19 Comments

pulsar

Wholehearted

Emptiness for nearly sixty years.
Never knowing why. Doctors thought
they had the answer last year,
when they found a hole in my heart.
But that emptiness was filled ten years ago,
when you came into my life.

This poem is my response to MTB: The Body and Poetry, the prompt from Grace at dVerse ~ Poets Pub, which is to write a poem using a part of the body as a metaphor.

Early last year, I was diagnosed with a Patent Foramen Ovale (PFO), or hole in my heart – the possible cause for a TIA I experienced in late 2019 (with no more occurrences). It’s a congenital condition, and the doctors have decided to monitor the situation, rather than performing surgery at my age. On the plus side for my heart, I met my wife ten years ago.

NaPoWriMo 2021

~ Day 8 ~

 

Awake Beyond Smoldering

/ Ken Gierke / rivrvlogr / 51 Comments

Awake Beyond Smoldering

It was a withering husk,
and I almost didn’t recognize it
as my own broken heart,
that which had been fractured
through years of denial
over what had been lost
long ago. But that was then,
when I could not accept the truth.
When fear of the unknown kept me
from finding a happiness
that could be mine. I turned my back
on the charred remains to find
that happiness, knowing my heart
would follow, hopeful we would succeed.

 

This poem is my response to MTB: Middles and Turns, the prompt from Peter at dVerse ~ Poets Pub, which is to write a poem that takes a dramatic turn.

Image source: freevectors.net (edited here)

patent, as in open

/ Ken Gierke / rivrvlogr / 63 Comments

patent, as in open

a hole in the wall
the shortest route
between two chambers

the heart of the matter

Reena’s Exploration Challenge #145 asks for a poem
that is as short and as cryptic as possible.

If the MRI I had on Tuesday shows no indication of past stroke,
my patent foramen ovale (PFO) will remain untreated.

Also linked to Open Link Night #270 at dVerse ~ Poets Pub.

Image
Detailed chambers of the heart & PFO illustration – © Mayo Clinic
(click image to see larger view in new tab)