False Start Valentine

After agreeing to post in combination with Suze's "False Start Valentine", I feared I might, as a man of little emotional aptitude, stray beyond my area of expertise. But, after absquatulating with her big smiley emblem and absorbing some enthusiasm, I began to see it as an experiment. Men like experiments because sometimes they explode and stink and stuff  (the experiments I mean, not the men -or at least less often). 

Men are often less than forthcoming in regard to strong feelings of affection. They tend to hold a lot back, not from recalcitrance so much as conditioning and the fact that they are emotionally limited by nature. According to a study by the American Institute Of Commentitious Neurology, women have roughly four times the emotional range of men. So, if you are a woman, the average man has no idea what you're feeling 75% of the time. Hence my first selection.  Let's begin with an excerpt from The Rose:

I grew up watching oaters full of strong, silent role models. Drama was left to the female lead, whose difficult job it was to elicit heartfelt responses from Gary-Cooper-quiet heroes who often really were Gary Cooper. It typically went like this:

Rose: Don't go, Tex, oh don't go.

Tex: Gots to go, Rosie.

Rose: But the Driscoll gang'll get you.

Tex: Mehbee....mehbee not.

Rose: But Tex, I...I love you, you big galoot.

Tex: Aw, Rosie.

Rose: Just come back to me.

Tex: Aw Rosie. Yuh give me the goldurned emotions!

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This is not to imply that men have no sense of romance. We do. It is simply hard to articulate. We love strongly and it makes us marvel and gag. Sometimes we even fall in love when nobody's around. I have selected two poems written at different stages of  my emotional development. They won't help any but they might furnish some insight on primitive sentiment.

Dark Express

You remember me better
Than I do.
Who I was, under a hat:
Another magician arriving
In station echoes--
A late train, smells
Of cigarettes and steel.
An overcoat
On a cold night,
For an instant seemed
Real, right and just, more
Than invention in
Shadows, dust and years.
Here, you touch glass
That stops a place where
Steam is,
Clear a squeaking
Circle and
Remember me.
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This Dance

I leaned down
Nearer your
Heart and
Heard singing.
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At this juncture, it is probably best to call upon a poetic specimen of more general appeal. So I will quote Shakespeare, Romeo And Juliet, from memory:

Juliet:  O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo?
           Deny thy name and I shall refuse mine
           And...uh...Oh won't you be my Valentine?

Although nothing especially exploded or stunk in this experiment, it was instructive. I learned it is really hard to memorize Shakespeare and after a certain point in romantic progress it is impossible for us to get a picture without some portion of a grandchild in it. But we do our best.

Happy Valentine's Day!