Paper Heart Poem by Kevin Patrick

I have a paper heart;
it was made with special care
Crafted from a forge,
where a child’s dreams are stored
It was growing from a garden,
were fairytales are pardoned
Were magic is discounted,
to those adults not tax deducted

It was found by chance on an ashen street
Where it was trampled upon by broken feet
A lonely passenger thrown down to malaise
To a sophist whims down a public orphanage

I picked it up, and felt the belly of flame
Which smudge and grim could not drain
Brushed its bruises, and gave its rips kisses
No wounds could impair its ivory strings

On a screaming city street,
I was deaf to joy’s delight
Amid onslaught of the engines, roar
I smiled in a vacuum store
Among friezes of steel faces,
I turned inside a little aria
For in my palm glory sang,
in a little square, of ivory mead

Walking with a purpose towards my sardine palace
Through the pavilion of harlequins on open display
I was burning through the winter with a tropical ticket
That was perched in my pocket to my private highway

The journey on this day was forwarded with reward
Aloof to the rotten smiles which recoil my brittle cord
For I was swept upon a stream, in a bed of waking thoughts
By influence of a cotton reed, a tiny manufactured seed

Nothing is elusive pass its special contents
Light as a feather, it’s weight is greater than gold
From the legend of San Lorenz down the sands of Timbuktu
For true fortune is a crop, that is unintentionally dropped

With expert circumspection it was tested for refitting
I stitched it with a resin wise to those with broken hearts
Who have dug deep inside the bottom of miseries endless trenches
With a formula called compassion that expunges all battlefields

Folded and remodel it became a maestros child
That I chaperoned as a ward to life’s imperfect grand design
To conceive of an ideal and raise above its adolescents
When glued into place it redeems me like a flood of wine upon the Thames

Its contents are invested within the actions of redemption
Fills up a cup to make it full, and stretches’ joy inside my world
Fits comfortably in my palm and gives me warmth as in a blanket
Against the blizzard’s of Monday’s wrestles morning storms

On the bus I need no partner
For my crinkled heart is my motor
When my tongue is babble Babel
My snow pretzel keeps me stable

And while a servant to decorum
I look for guidance in my scribble
While captive to a tailor’s warden
I find rebellion within my special prism

There is no grey matter, compact with faith everyday
Where my paper heart stands with its silent warm rays
Back peddling the bellicose and quicksand of misery
The unmarked tears we all scream, but can’t afford to say

Wherever I’m bounded hope spring the pipers sway
From a little souvenir, that will always guide my way
In a human caged zoo, the boutique market dens
Or the zigrats of traffic parks, the raucous of pensive shells

Forever it casts a hallo inside my varnished mind
Bright with fortune, it could be, a merry stolen crime
For marked is a fact that my paper heart is a second sun
That will not forfeit, or surrender, to the dusk and start to run

It Fill’s up a parlour, with some golden amber
That elevates the mood, from restless slumber
It travel’s like a star, with a silver vapour trail
That passes on my brow, with incandescent hail

It changes with the seasons, it hyperventilates a rainbow
Near a river it is coral, and in a meadow it kisses indigo
Put it near the suns eye, it will bask in rouge delights
And bathes in the afterglow, of ebony in a catacomb

For in truth this vanilla spectre, Is my furtive golden treasure
That is bounded as an anchor, for my aptitude for Bacchus leisure
Adding credit that is leverage for moments of stolen pleasure
To continue unbounded against the grind of Atlas pressure


And If you love me madly (enough to climb inside the sun)
And contract sunburn that marks a caramelized kiss
I will give you this little prize, which has always been my surprise
For once you have the paper heart; my armour has been broken down

For everything inside its form, is every beauty that goes ignored
Of icicles on rooftop ledge, and streams of pools were eddies form
Of Marigolds in summers lore, and sycamores in autumns song
For in truth there are no secrets for life is naked to simply being.