Love's Longings... ...leaving hearts on my canvas...

"Cheat your landlord if you can and must, but do not try to shortchange the Muse. It cannot be done. You can't fake quality any more than you can fake a good meal." William S. Burroughs. This, book titled Love's Longings... ...leaving hearts on my canvas... is a collection of love poetry drawn from many perspectives, imagine your heart as a finely cut diamond, and the view to be the light rushing through, then spin the diamond...spin... The word 'Platonic' is the idealized form of love in most cases as we see and well, there's a very good reason behind it. Plato's words ring true till eternity as he describes love, "Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back. Those who wish to sing always find a song. At the touch of a lover, everyone becomes a poet." Love's Longings... ...leaving hearts on my canvas... is a little different than Carl Porten's usual norm of poems, aimed now solely at hope as he casts his eyes down an arrow of love, compassion as the bow, aimed steadily to pierce one's heart through this collection of love poems that are solely based on the universal emotion of love and its eternal appeal. Carl's thoughts echo in Emily Dickinson's famous line, "If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain." As Peter Handke very aptly stated, "If a nation loses its storytellers, it loses its childhood." and very similarly here through words we can build bridges, move mountains, even part the very waters of the mighty oceans, but from where some produce dreams from these words, others stage fright shows, shocking to the core with reality, we all need a break from... it's with much hope that Love's Longings... ...leaving hearts on my canvas... is presented to the readers as it would help take your mind away to beautiful places as you drift through the lines of the rhythmic poetry, written by a heart and produced by a soul... that has in essence realised the spirituality of love. Carl's only wish is that with the beauty you've within your heart, and the exuberant amount of ambient light radiated by your desires to quench, you would take a nice hot chocolate drink, or a warm herbal tea as you sit with this book, grab a cookie as you would feel to open your sails to be filled by the breeze of forever, letting guide your galleon down currents of compassion, past hope laying beyond trust...to a place called Love. Talking about love and reading about love in this prized collection of love poems, one would realise that love's a dream, an attainment and an ideal that every soul strives to reach and has an unquenchable thirst for and an insatiable desire to reach for giving and receiving love. The meaning of the existence of this universe as best described in these words of none other than Max Ehrmann in his epic poem "Desiderata", "You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here." Heartfelt acknowledgement to everyone involved in the production of this publication, especially Carl's true love, Suparna Ghosh (Clair as Carl calls her), without whom, as she's Carl's muse... needless to say more...this book wouldn't have been so much inspired as it's been. A legacy of love in its diverse aspects and facets and colours come alive to bring joy to the reader's heart and bliss to the reader's soul...forever and beyond to be remembered and cherished...a legacy to continue till eternity and beyond...