Poem of the Day: “That Stomping Sensibility” by David Pring-Mill

Songs of Eretz Poetry Review is pleased to present “That Stomping Sensibility” by David Pring-Mill.  Mr. Pring-Mill is a writer and award-winning filmmaker. His poems have been published in: Poetry Quarterly, Boston Literary Magazine, Page & Spine, Eunoia Review, Crack the Spine, and East Coast Literary Review. He is also author of the poetry book Age of the Appliance. Follow him online: @davesaidso, www.pring-mill.com. 

That Stomping Sensibility

David Pring-Mill

We are modern warriors

And so we march.

with that stomping sensibility,

never knowing,

never truly knowing

what we’re trampling…

And always,

always getting closer

To some desirable thing,

which quickly becomes

some other thing.

We don’t know

what birds and bugs

say,

but beneath us, they must be,

of this

we are assured.

That V-shaped flock says something.

We only hear

repetitious noise;

we interpret it

as blaring horns

when there is no traffic in the sky—

only cooperative form!

And the buzzing of those bees:

Static,

or something else entirely?

Surely, they are full,

In their shape, in their being,

In their ways:

Fully tuned into themselves,

into the clear signal of existence.

What else is muted?

Of the incomprehensible,

What else makes sense?

No. Onwards!

We march onwards,

stomping and crushing

along the way.

A path is not taken.

A path is made.

Even music must know

its instruments

as players

in some holy war.

Melody shapes its own victories

from the sonic battlefield.

And awareness is the creed

of the unspoken.

Of the incomprehensible,

What else makes sense?

This is a lonely universe,

Some say.

On a planet teeming with life,

They say it.

With the skein still above,

Every emotion ripples through us,

Through the stillness

of an ever-expanding body

and wilted mind.

I feel my heart crashing

And my bones breaking.

I try to remember:

All pain is transformative,

And I can’t rightly complain

until I am appointed god of shapes.

Never mind all that.

Onwards.

We march onwards…

In the hearts and minds

Of youth, one hundred things

demand celebration and pity.

And even I

Remember being young,

Remember blades of grass

that split in two

along the crease,

Remember little floating toys…

Someone once told me:

“I don’t like to take baths

because I don’t want to sit there 

in my own filth.”

But if your filth is in the bathwater 

that means that filth came off of you, 

which means that there’s filth on you right now, 

which means that you already are 

sitting in your own filth.

You don’t object to baths.

You object to self-awareness.

…And with raspy voices,

we scream: Onwards!

Poet's Notes:  Every day, we're surrounded by stimuli, and we interpret them subjectively. "That Stomping Sensibility" raises discursive questions about this process. If it turns out that meaning underlies everything, how would that alter our perception? How would that impact human experience? Is there a hidden structure to chaos?

Editor’s Note:  I enjoy the jaunty rhythm and directionless direction of this poem.  The range from serious, philosophical introspection to whimsical, satirical exuberance keeps my attention.  It is a thought-provoking piece, mindful of mindlessness.