Poem - MAG Poetry Prize 2010
Heart-shaped
by
Eversley Cross, Hook, UK
You say that it is heart-shaped;
You are wrong. Since when
Was a heart such a perfect thing?
The neat waist and bosom
Of a corseted Victorian lady;
Two smooth circles and a triangle -
A couple of Camembert and a Dairylea;
An upturned Everest with the highlands on top -
No, no, no. That is not the shape of a heart.
It isn’t tidy - it doesn’t care about being symmetrical.
It is a grotesque sponge which soaks up all the glory for
The whole world’s love and romance. Just an organ, pulsating
with a life of it’s own: ugly, unnerving, disturbing.
It whirs and surges like a generator in a power cut,
It doesn’t flutter with wings from its’ crimson cocoon
Like some cherry moth that pops out of cutesy cards
In WHSmiths. No, it is much more gory than that.
You say it is heart-shaped; it is not.
This poem is heart-shaped.
Added: 30.04.2010
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