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.