Look into my heart,
stranger, and tell me
what you see there.
Our lives have crossed
briefly. You have seen
these hands move,
this mouth mumble
dumbly, and I have not
been blind to the
quadratic equation
of your mind. But
the man in the mouth
and the man in the heart
are not the same –
and you cannot see
into my heart.
From ‘Memories, Moods, Reflections’
© 2024 Dafydd Hughes Lewis. All rights reserved. 
A troubled soul here Dafydd..searching for forgiveness or salvation, or a recognition of his humanity. Does he wish to remain an unknown quantity, an enigma.. disturbing in it’s seeming simplicity.
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Thank you, Gill. Not quite so complex. It’s addressed to someone casually met, but a certain type – a ‘Company Man’ who lives for his job description, and is most at home with ‘small talk’ at parties. The kind of person who has never read a poem or admired a work of art in his life; hence the ‘quadratic equation’ of his mind; he has no way of delving into mine. There are many of them out there, in different guises. Having said that, there are variables, and we cannot pretend that we know about everyone else, and we are all – everyone, I suppose – unknown quantities in our hearts.
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The sadness of perceived understanding encapsulated succinctly in a few short wrenching lines. Deceptively simple, skillfully crafted poetry.
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Thank you, Roma. I still like this after all these years – yet explaining what I felt at the time is not easy, I find. Basically, I suppose it’s an attempt to draw the distinction between the technical and the artistic.
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Roma has expressed this far better than I could, such depth in simplicity – an aspect of the sadness of humanity so cleverly captured and addressed.
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Thank you, Jacydo. Much appreciated!
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