Book Review

Poet Unravels the Mystery of Love

Title: The Many Silences of Love

Author: H. Lloyd Weston

Publisher: Trafford Publishing, USA

Reviewer: Dr. Glenville Ashby                                                                             

We have all been smitten, bitten by a whirl of emotions that we call love. It is a unique feeling that melts the heart of the stoic and stirs unbridled sensibility in the most vulnerable.

      In The Many Silences of Love, author and poet, H. Lloyd Weston, dares to answer an enigma that so many have failed to unravel. Is love heightened infatuation? Is it a sobering gesture of affection? Is it an emotional intoxicant that dazzles and destroys the senses? Once unleashed can it be likened to an incorrigible beast that destroys the individual? Is it cruel? Is it kind?

     Weston wrestles with love’s multiplex faces. It is a Herculean task but he pretty much comes close to deciphering this emotional vortex.

     He simplifies love, making it more comprehensible. Almost effortlessly, he likens love to the colour, beauty and cyclical character of nature. His metaphorical leanings are detailed and crisp.

His tonal quality is even and soothing. His beat is structured, rhythmic and fluidly cadenced.

Weston is the consummate wordsmith and he entertains to the hilt. Moreover he proves to be a romantic in touch with his sense and sensibility. He is gratuitous for being in love, but is well aware of the gnawing feeling of emptiness. He knows and feels the pain the searing and maddening hurt that destroys the mind and incapacitates the body. He is schoolboy overwhelmed by desire. He is a man who will accept and savor a touch, a caress, and a moment of quietude with his partner. Here love is sublime and ethereal. Carnality is absent and hardly missed.

Hypnotic Spell

     In the arms of Love he writes, We lie transfixed in Love’s hypnotic spell, fully clothed, except for our naked emotions. That is how love forces us to reveal our true Nature of Self.

     In the subtlety of Love Song, he fashions love to a song that lingers longer- like music in the

soul; one that soothes our longing for touch from another being.

    And after contemplating the beauty of nature he offers a clue to the essence love. It’s transcendental, yet pedestrian- ineffable yet understandable. Weston pens in the Language of Love,

          If I were a red rose

          Blooming in a French Garden,

          I would say study me well.

          Learn the vocabulary of my structure…

          Observes the sensuality of my curves,

          See how soft and sensuous- foreign yet familiar.

     But in Love Song, the poet bemoans the burden of love. There is yearning, pleading and pain.

But he battles through raw emotions hoping to temper, if not conquer his feelings.

     In Moment, the Hyde side of love rears its head and the poet is shattered, crest fallen, victim of unspeakable despair. Love proves to be a double-edged sword. And Weston cries out,

Does there exist a remedy potent enough to speed relief? Or counteract the sting of unrequited love’s inconsolable grief? There is no magical formula capable of bringing instant relief.

     Weston’s ability as a genuine poet is best exemplified in One River of Self. He writes,

     Love came like a magician in the night,

     Rearranging hearts that separately lie-

     Like fading petals after summer roses die….

     Love is a bridge for strangers,

     Two lives that melt

     Into one river of self.

Weston is boundlessly resourceful arguably in the vein of the best: Byron, Keats and Wordsworth of the Romantic era. No small feat.  His entire repertoire is dedicated to a single theme, a sure recipe for repetitiveness and ennui. Yet, he deftly avoids that pitfall, producing a

number of poems, all of which are fresh, unique and provocative.  A triumph that is undeniable.

Rating: Highly recommended.