While most people won’t watch all of these videos (some won’t watch any of them), I recommend you do even if you don’t watch them all in one sitting. They’re great examples of what a good spoken word performance is like. Admittedly, I’ve written about both, and whether based on my own experiences, those of people I know, or both, they are usually the most powerful poems to read/listen to. So, in this post, I’m going to feature some of my favorite poems by other people and mix in a few of my own, and I’m going to try to present them in a linear fashion to illustrate the evolution of both poetry and relationships. Rudy Francisco is one of my favorite spoken word artists, and his Love Poem Medley contains two poems that showcase the beginning and end of a relationship. Let’s start with the beginning:
This next poem is one written by me, and while it was turned in as a poetry assignment because I wanted feedback on it, I wrote it specifically for someone. While most of my poems have a degree of personal involvement, this is one of the rare times that it was 100% written about, to, and for a person in my life. Imperceptible I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, In secret, between the shadow and the soul. I see the cosmos in your eyes. My lungs, the universe–ever expanding, breath you into me. I would exhale if not for the fear of the impending loss. Still, you escape me, a smoke silhouette in lonely air, dancing with the horizon until the sun falls under the plateau. Unseen, this love survives as air does —like a god. Omniscient and omnipotent, this love flourishes in all seasons, illuminates ocean trenches with flame, it consumes shadows, and whispers thunder. That poem, was partially written in response to Pablo Neruda’s (arguably my favorite traditional poet) poem: Sonnet XVII I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz, or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off. I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, in secret, between the shadow and the soul. I love you as the plant that never blooms but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers; thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance, risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body. I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride; so I love you because I know no other way than this: where I does not exist, nor you, so close that your hand on my chest is my hand, so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep. Neruda’s poem captures the essence and intensity of a love that is so strong that the people are sharing their entire lives/souls. A more modern telling of these same types of feelings can be seen in this performance by Shihan:
Now, up there in popularity with love poems are break up poems. There’s no shortage of break up poems, and they range from hostile, bitter, hopeful, sad, tragic, etc. This first poem is meant to show that men can hurt just as much as women after a break-up; it tries to break the stereotype that men don’t really care when relationships end.
To bring Rudy’s poems full circle, here is the second half of his Love Poem Medley— the poem he wrote after the woman from the first poem broke up with him and got a new boyfriend almost instantaneously.
Pablo Neruda was no stranger to heartbreak either, but of his many poems about the topic, this has to be my favorite. It explains that thin line between love and hate and how no matter what, no matter how much you might hate the person who hurt you, you mainly hate that fact that you’re still in love with them—that love is painful. I Do Not Love You Except Because I Love You I do not love you except because I love you; I go from loving to not loving you, From waiting to not waiting for you My heart moves from cold to fire. I love you only because it’s you the one I love; I hate you deeply, and hating you Bend to you, and the measure of my changing love for you Is that I do not see you but love you blindly. Maybe January light will consume My heart with its cruel Ray, stealing my key to true calm. In this part of the story I am the one who Dies, the only one, and I will die of love because I love you, Because I love you, Love, in fire and blood. Lastly, if anyone is even reading anymore, a poem that I’ve been working on that may not be in it’s final iteration, but it’s at least presentable for now: Like Love Like Fire “Let’s fall in love as if the world was on fire and there is nothing left, but ash and us.” -Rudy Francisco I’ve heard people say, “Love is where you find your home inside the soul of another,” That, “love is friendship on fire,” burning deep into our bodies And igniting our hearts into unquenchable embers. ‘Cause like love, fire is beautiful, chaotic, And destructive. —if you love too much and get too close, you are going to get burned. And I wasn’t sure about the truth behind those things until an arsonist named uncertainty and the friction of distance created a spark on love letters we wrote in gasoline poured from our veins— I saw everything we had go up in flames. Our house that love built. Our house that love built fit two comfortably and left ample room for expansion, We could grow together. But after enough time in our house that love built, life’s stresses bowed the floors, rotted the wood, and cracked the foundation—we didn’t know until the walls started to crumble on top of us. Because love can’t stay the same – it changes – it warps and mutates, molting the shell of it’s walls, like a cicada – love doesn’t come around very often. Now, with blackened and bloodied hands, I crawl through the rubble of our love, Looking for something to save. I used to think love was eternal, but now I know that like fire, it burns slowly, growing hotter and brighter until there is no more oxygen left for it to survive, it wavers and flickers in the sighs when we realize there is nothing left to say. Now our love just lies here, smoldering – not yet ready to die out, waiting for the rain that falls from your ocean eyes on days I see you. Only then we can drown these ruins — and resurrect the phoenix of our love from the ashes. I just wish that it would rain.
My Ethereal Enigma 