Poetry Journal:Entry #1:Heartstopper

Entry #1:"Heartstopper"1

I have decided, partially from a feeling of necessity, mostly due to a spark of inspiration from reading excerpts of Sylvia Plath's journals, the unabridged copy of which I am now in possession of, to write an entry on each new poem I fashion.  I feel that this exercise will help me to improve as a poet and give me a reference to my past, in regards to the emotions and images that drove former works.  I have also decided to post this, the initial entry, and, assuming I do not receive a deluge of complaints reprimanding me for what I believe to be egocentricism on my part in thinking that anyone would be interested in reading this, its successors.  I'm sure Woodworm will have something to say but, as we all know, he is miles behind me as both a poet and a person, so his remarks will be cheerfully ignored.  Anyway, my intention for this journal is to explain each stanza, noting any words or phrases that warrant such, and, despite my infuriating tendency to reference several events or feelings in one poetic paragraph, to give the story behind said stanzas.  We begin with "Heartstopper" for two important reasons.  Firstly, it is my most recent poem, the only one still sitting on my drawing board awaiting the immortalizing call to be posted.  Secondly, as it is about a specific event, and brimming with passion, it will be easier to dissect than one of my more nebulous pieces.  Remember, kind reader, that this is an experiment, and, while I am steadfastly refusing to scrap the idea all together, continuing to post these entries may not be a future activity.  Though I will not do so in my saved version of this journal in WordPad, I will repost the relevant stanzas of this poem before each complimenting paragraph, for the sake of clarity.  Before I do so, I will give the general background on the experience that resulted in this poem.  I was conducting an AIM conversation with Sara Carnes who was, at that time, my unofficial girlfriend.  I asked her a question, the exact wording of which has been effaced from my memory in a haphazard way like chalk pictures on the street, and she responded by informing me that we are "two different types of people romantically" and thusly would not work as a couple.  Within the span of the two hours we talked afterwards, she came to the conclusion that we could work together, if fate provided, and that her earlier statement had been a product of her impulsive nature.  I was greatly relieved, since she had essentially broken up with me, and was now telling me that there was still a chance for us, romance-wise.  Nonetheless, being broken up with was a deep hurt, and the dull, surreal sting continued to jab at my heart afterwards, to the point that I felt writing a poem about it would be the only action possible that could officially place the event in the past.  I named the piece "Heartstopper" because I felt the title captured my first reaction to Sara's statement, which was one of time-elapsing numbness.2

Crossing through myself with ulcerous cleaver.3

I am overwhelmed by the lazuline fever.4

Impulse to impulse,the sheath is unravelled.5

Rejent betrays me the day of the battle.6

So, to begin this poem, I needed a rhythm.  I decided, before I commenced writing, that I would attempt to make this poem resemble, in form and style, my Elizabethan poems, because I have since been afflicted with a rather frustrating inclination to make each line in any given stanza rhyme completely with its proceeder, that is, for the entire sentence to rhyme, not just the last word. To return to the more carefree, image-driven style of my Elizabethan poems, I would need a piece with a hum-able rhythm, one shamelessly stolen from a song.  A lot of the beats for my poems come from songs, but it is generally because I had the song in my head and didn't know the lyrics, which forced me to make up new lyrics, which, in turn, became the template for a poem.  In this case, I selected a beat, that of Nine Inch Nails' song "Into the Void" from their masterpiece, "The Fragile", which may be the best double CD of all time. This particular rhythm consists of 12 syllables, and, though I have not felt it necessary to count, I'm reasonably sure I maintained it, or at least came within no more than one erroneous syllable of maintaining it, throughout.  As usual, the first line of Trent's song assisted me in constructing my first verse, as I took "Talking to myself..." and changed it to "Crossing through myself...", and then continued from there.  I like the image of a cleaver creating a red, scarring X on a man's stomach, leaving blistered pain for him to suffer through later.  This corresponds to my inability to dismiss the hurt I felt from Sara's words after she dismissed the words themselves as meaningless.  The second line stands out, in my mind, due to the word "lazuline', a synonym for blue which I discovered via Allpoetry's ever-helpful dictionary/thesaurus feature.  The juxtaposition of motionless, dreary blue with the hot flash of fever creates an almost oxymoronic ailment, which is what I was infected with.  The third line references the myelin sheath, a "layer of fatty tissue segmentally encasing the fibers of many neurons; enables vastly greater transmission speed of neural impulses as the impulse hops from one node to the next".  The sheath, which can not actually unravel as much as it can degenerate, is depicted as becoming useless because I saw my safety net for dubiety and, subsequently, a portion of my mental health, dissipate with Sara's austere statement.  The word "regent", which I found in the dictionary as I was looking up another word, is used to show how I had come to rely on Sara in a way analagous to the way soldiers rely on their leader, obedient and unquestioning.7

Racked with attacks,snap decision contracting.8

Back to the wall,I am strapped by her passing.9

Grovel before memories of the pundit.10

Nothing's for sure but that I'm being punished.11

This first line is filled with internal rhyme, in a way that I find, upon second glance, a bit juvenile.  It is also quite self-explanatory.  The second line, which was brought about by a portion of a Jay-Z song, draws me as bound to a immobile wall with leather straps, a fitting metaphor for how I felt about my involvement in relational decisions.  The word "passing" is a reference to how Sara died to me for a moment, lingering as a ghost until she shed her irrationality.  She is labelled a pundit in the next line, a word a little harsher than is accurate, since I have always viewed "pundit" as a word synonymous with pedantic, and I bow before her spectral memory in a display of romantic loyalty.  The fourth line demonstrates both the instability of our position, platonic or otherwise, and my ill-conceived, unshakable notion that the whole affair was simply my punishment for something I done wrong in the past.12

Let me annul what I was as a person.13

Crestfallen sobs,far too weak to be perfect.14

What's more appalling,mistakes or corrections?15

Shawl afterbirth of the worst misdirection.16

My willingness to conform to Sara's demands is depicted in the first line, which is, in all honesty, merely in existence to set up the second.  The second like contains the word "crestfallen", which has special meaning to me.  I have, since learning the word, always felt that crestfallen describes the ultimate sadness, a state of melancholy that transcends depression and settles down onto the chest of someone who has lost every possible defense against the death of spirit.  I have, because of this, chosen to save the word for a special occasion, for when I felt a moving, unforgettable strain of sorrow.  So, it fit here, in a poem about one of the most morose moments of my life.  The rest of the line, almost an afterthought, are about how my crying prevented me from being able to type out witty, thoughtful responses to Sara's musings on our relationship.  The third line asks whether Sara's mistake, which had the advantage of being retracted, was more discouraging than her eventual conclusion, that we should remain friends at least until she goes to college.  The phrase "shawl afterbirth" is used to describe the deadened feeling I retained from my previous pain, like a paralyzed lower torso feels after the last shockwave of agony.17

The briskness of speech breeds caprice in abundance.18

This time the riptide will not let me function.19

Sinister thoughts are so are so surging it stalls me.20

Alchemy brought tempest from melancholy.   21

The first line of this stanza is, even with its modicum of internal rhyme, the worst of the poem, and far beneath me as a writer.  It is, additionally, fairly easy to decipher, and so I will not waste time expounding upon it.  The second line is moderately better, employing riptide as a metaphor for my recurring feeling of helplessness in my relationship wth Sara.  The third and fourth lines introduce the concept of anger to the poem, as in my anger towards Sara for driving me into a hole of sadness before requesting that I forget all she said and just continue on normally.  "Alchemy" is used in the last verse to represent my mood changing from downcast to furious.22

Give me ammunition for artilleries of tear shots.23

Sinuous perdition muffles the legato clear thoughts.24

Anything is preferable to being behind closed doors.25

I know just enough of you to never need to know more. 26

This last stanza was one I was stuck on for some time.  I finished The first four stanzas of this piece riding an inspirational rush and began the fifth.  My muse deserted me afterwards, and I was left with four stanzas and one line.  Wanting to stay within the Elizabethan style of 4 lines per stanza, I was forced to wrap up the poem with three more lines, all of which are clunky, whitewashed versions of their vibrant kin.  The first line is obviously a nod to the many tears I cried during my conversation with Sara, but the second line is a little more ambiguous.  "Perdition" is used to represent my perennial damnation to a life with no companion, a stifling state of staccato confusion.  "Closed door" is a reference to my being shut behind the blockade of singlehood.  The fourth line is tacked on merely as a finisher27