Just out! My new audiobook of love poems Comorbidity Expressions of Love is up at Audible with the lovely voice talent of Diana Elena. These are poems of prenatal, childhood, adult and ghostly love. “Co” means together, “morbidity” for suffering a disease or condition — in this case love poetry through the lens of PTSD and schizoaffective disorders.
Please have a listen and add your review at Audible. I look forward to your impressions!
Do we begin to love even before birth? I have a memory that used to come back to me often in childhood, usually at night. Everything is dense and fluid pressing up against me like an ocean. I would long to return to that place. From this familiarity and safety, a kind of love may have already begun. Who could deny that newborns love their mother, that most intimate of relationships?
The love poems in Comorbidity, Expressions of Love express the influences of childbirth, mother, family ties, ghosts and lovers throughout my life. In a sense these are nonfiction, based on my own experiences and emotions. But the poems are also full of images from imagination or visualizations.
Beginning with Mother’s Love, the poems move from an unborn baby and child’s bonds with mother, to adult romances in Ghostly Love, and regrets after abuse in Comorbid Love. Later in life, in Meetings, love follows patterns set down over years of accumulated experiences with mental health conditions. These include PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) from a physically abusive relationship, and schizoaffective disorder diagnosed later in life, about a year after I had initially written the draft for this poetry collection.
In these poems, not only how I know family and lovers, but even how I sense the world around me has become a kind of love. I am always remembering and filtering through scenes I cherished. Memories trace a line of fullness and comfort from the past through to the present.
Reader Reviews of Comorbidity – Expressions of Love
From the popular book site, Goodreads:
“Brown’s style is beautiful and expressive, filled with happiness and pain in equal parts. ” — Finley
“This edgy, often heart-breaking collection of poems left me at times exhilarated, devastated, crushed, and redeemed. ” — Sharon Buchbinder
“This is a wonderful short book of free verse poetry. ” — Alyssa
Where to Get the Book of Love Poems
Audiobook: Comorbidity – Expressions of Love on Audible
eBook: Comorbidity – Expressions of Love eBook
Paperback: Comorbidity – Expressions of Love in print
Book Excerpt
Mother’s Love
midnights, I look for that prenatal embrace
where my first love was born cell by cell
inside of your flesh and blood
lost, I seek out the voiceless warmth
instinctively remembered that I can’t remake
and long to float gravity-free
in the thick sea of your womb
in these dark hours, I listen for Chopin’s murmurs
your fingers coaxed from the old piano keys
when you played for you and gave the memory to me
trailing, pounding, yearning, weeping his melodies
across your layers of skin and muscle
where they reached my submerged fetal ears
and soothed me inside your impenetrable cave
I search with eyes, ears, fingertips, and memory
for that place where every ghostly love, every longing, began
J.J.Brown
What’s comorbid with your love? Please share your thoughts in the comments below.
J.J.Brown Author 