Friday, April 15, 2016

Poem of the Day: “My Only Affection” by David Pring-Mill, Frequent Contributor


My Only Affection
David Pring-Mill

We are mechanized emotions,
Interlocking
in global love
and hate.
This pinprick of pale blue light
provides enough substance
for billions of dreams,
feelings without dimension.

and what is this?
Each shape seems strange to me.
Particularly when I consider
that every familiarity
was once an oddity.

I am dying every day
and still, I love you.
The world
asks us to die,
to be refined.

We arrive upon
tepid agreement.
In the bones, fat, and muscle,
we choose
craving, clinging,
animalistic resistance.

Meanwhile,
all those days unlived
still scream.
twisted pillars!
crumpled impressions!
countless seconds
tied together
into shabby narratives!

I am better than this.
So were you.

And what are these words
if not a way
to bond us?
To confess
Lingering infatuation
for you, for life itself?

If anything has worth –
a dubious premise –
shouldn't it be passion?
Where has all the passion gone? 

It seemed almost a novel idea
when I first thought of it;
But I want to actually be the person
I want you to see me as.

And what if
I regularly let that zest
go freely, over to you, over
to everything?
What if I discovered
when a person hits the depths
of being,
of that intuitively known
supply of soul —
it is then and only then
that the world offers more,
and lets us exist
within
the force of life, 
as a truly sanctioned conduit
for liveliness?

What if that winsome me
endured till crippling ages,
impressing and pursuing,
wanting to have you,
and wanting you to want me?

The Shadow looms over,
And sometimes I stumble.
These mechanical objects
keep
asserting their orbit.

I remember that once
I noticed you
wandering in the acid rain,
while insisting
it was a beautiful day.

Your forecasts were always wrong,
But you never did
concede the point.

I let you believe
that you were right.

Our minds are made out of time,
More so than matter.
Each mind is an impressionistic
expression of time.
And so I remember you
with small brushstrokes,
young in faith and heart.

And in these so-called objects,
There is much absurdity.
We make doors,
And go, "Hey look! It opens!"
But we put it there
And blocked the other side.
Before the door,
There was nothing but openness.

With gadgets, we try
to capture the eternal.
Each photograph
is a declaration of self.
And therefore,
every photo
of an ocean sunset
declares,
"I am drowning!"

Stories, songs, poems,
all the same,
Every act of expression
is a flag,
planted triumphantly
in a mudslide-hill.

That dripping faucet is now
a sound well-defined,
signifying everything…
regret, repetition,
the desire to do right,
bit by bit.
And it reminds me:
My apartment is connected 
to all the other homes, through pipes,
and thus, all the people in this city
truly live together
with the same life source,
and different walls…

Our barriers betray
one house, undivided.
And we built this house, over time,
with such importance;        
such stupid
and necessary
importance.

Poet's Notes:  "My Only Affection" was inspired by 1 John 2:15-17: "Do not love the world or anything in the world." I wanted to explore the manifestations of love, in a world of meaningless matter. Can love transcend our bodies and our arbitrary boundaries? And can we truly overcome "the pride of life"?

Editor's Note:  The graphic accompanying today's poem is the earth as photographed from the Voyager 1 spacecraft at a distance of twelve billion miles from the planet.  For more information, see http://beforeitsnews.com/space/2013/09/pale-blue-dot-2-voyager-1-signal-from-interstellar-space-seen-from-earth-photo-2465914.html.

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