Love is one of those notions about which one can say anything and still be right. However, what I’ve heard and read most often -- ranging from psychological studies to poetry – is that love is the one force which releases us from fears imposed by time. To me, this qualifies as pure hogwash. If anything, love confines and limits (both platonic and earthly); it narrows our usually scattered vision, strips it of habitual neutrality and grants it focus and intensity which few can bear or handle. Incidentally, neutrality (or absence of love) is precisely what liberates us – and the very few who have it in abundance are referred to as saints, gurus, eunuchs, depending on the locale. They have such pure indifference towards life along with its cocktail of emotions and experiences that they effortlessly live above the neck. It is also worthwhile to note that they almost never need poetry.
       And then there are the rest of us… Like the demons our tales told us about, we grab life. We are pained and we cause pain. And hence the poems – as an alternative for self-pity or violence, as a substitute for a more natural reaction, or as a substitute for action per se.
       Speaking from a purely professional point of view, love poetry is the most exciting genre in the respect that it provides the most dangerous gamble for the poet: the odds at failure are tremendous. If you do not touch upon the common cord, no matter how skilled a poet you are, the result is going to be a page full of neurotic babble which is more fit to end up under the scrutiny of a psychiatrist than a reader. However, if you do succeed, the ample rewards are to be expected because the majority, despite society’s rules and attempts, still manages to squeeze this taboo called love into their lives at least in minimal dosage. 
       Love, especially someone elses’, is the easiest thing to trample or ridicule and one should always remember this when overcome by the sudden urge to share the story with others. The rule of thumb is that no one is interested unless they can see their own selves in your story. Then, perhaps, they will forgive you for a minute until reason returns them back to dailiness and the accusatory finger is again in search of a target.
       In a society in which I happen to live, in America, this hypocritical attitude towards love is driven to a ridiculous extreme. Here, love is considered to be unhealthy – a sort of a nuisance or an aberration that causes pain, and pain is one thing Americans fear and, therefore, never understand beyond the primitive level of a pop-magazine. You can compare them to 19th century carousing officers who had sufficient imagination for courtship, but not the sufficient stamina to await its outcome. Perhaps they are wise enough to have realized that love does not render any meaning to life, but they are not wise enough to admit that without it life seems meaningless. 
        Love poetry is the surest proof that “poetry arises from trash” – from the likes of us and because of the likes of us. Hence, the dedications: the following poems, unlike others in this book, would not have been written without the physical existence of those to whom they are dedicated.