Heart Murmurs

I am mainly writing this entry to record yet another "pun", or idea for a poem, or whatever. Haven't the clarity (or lack of) to write something on it just yet, just the seedling of a thought.

The heart organ consists, basically, of two pumps, two systems of circulation, one to collect "stale" de-oxygenated blood from the body and pump it to the lungs, and the other to collect "fresh" oxygenated blood from the lungs and pump it out to the body. You might say that the heart is "never one but two," it is always both the burden of the old and the push for the new. But this fundamental dualism aside, let's look at the problem of heart murmurs.

A heart murmur is an often faint, sometimes distinct "deviation" from the normal lub-dub sound/rhythm of the heart. Sometimes it is an "aftersound" following the "lub," other times an "aftersound" following the "dub." In any case, there is a whole science and art to listening to these sounds and determining where the "problem" is with the heart: for such murmurs do indicate problems, either with the atria or ventricles. Basically, heart murmurs are caused by "leaky" or inefficient valves; they are the sound of blood backing up, as it were.

Figuratively speaking, "heart murmurs" occur when there are "leaks" in the normally coherent and concealed ambiguity of the heart. They are memories, sometimes, or at other times, they may be inappropriate hopes (heart murmurs may occur as a result of faulty ventricles or atria, in either pump "loop"). In any case, they are not only inefficient, but potentially dangerous... The heart as our "looping" of desire, in normal "Healthy" individuals, kept "silent" and consistent (beating its syncopated rhythm with the chasing of each new pursuit), is threatened when it, for one reason or another, "LEAKS."

The normal functional machinations of our bodies and lives are so boring. Isn't it much more interesting when things break down? The mysterious signs and symptoms of burgeoning pathology, the coming to terms with abnormality, the struggles with perhaps inevitable "brokenness", the nature of (and possibility of) "cure." Yeah, it's only when things break down that we have to open them up and see how they really tick (the miraculous jerry-rigging that has kept us, and the whole society, afloat, apparently forever!).