Old Flame

Beautiful, O woman not mine, you Awake in me that old passion, the demon I thought, with Plato, lay dormant, mimicking Death; you cannot know how many years Of memory you bring to live again in me; but It is all vain; there is no purpose now; the god of love Has fled, left us, abandoned in our selfishness; There are no more lonely haunts, romantic spots Where we – you and I – could share each other, no Caves or inlets or islands beyond the reach of crazed capital Suffusing its poisonous vapour over the fields of The possible; all before us is desert; The rule of fear and perpetual war to prolong The work of power, of greedy hands, who have reached Into our very hearts and attuned all passion to practical things, Scorching the soul’s own terrain within the general conflagration Of self-interest; I cannot love you, for I too am mechanism, who can barely Feel my own existence; barely rise from the torpor of self-deceit: My steel heart will not care for itself: How could it care For a fragile thing like you?