Old Flame Poem by Rafey Habib

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?