DESIRE

by John Herlihy


A friend asked me recently about my heart’s desire
To identify what I wanted and state what really set me on fire
Hoping that what I desire will not actually ignite my funeral pyre.
Desire has a way of being costly across the playing board,
Paying sometimes an exorbitant price we cannot always afford,
Considering it a thrill we seek as a way to avoid being bored.

We want more, much more, and never stop wanting,
An endless cycle of recurring desire that ends up feeling like taunting.
I settled in to asking myself why random desire feels slightly haunted;
What is it in my inner makeup that cried out to be flaunted?
Why is It that desire eventually leaves me feeling daunted?
As if realizing once my desires were fulfilled they weren’t what I really wanted.
Our desires stir the senses to an exaggerated sense of recklessness,
To end up having our deepest interests merely seem like silly fecklessness,
Leaving us confused and troubled, with an asthmatic touch of breathlessness.

Wait a minute now, interested readers, colleagues and friends.
Before you go searching for elusive answers around a series of bends,
Let us speak the truth about our secret desires and their apparent ends.
We need to identify their true nature and be done with it.
Desire is an untamed animal that announces itself as full of it
Raging and wild, like a hurricane wind just missing it,
Or a raving madman full of himself and insisting on it.
Desire pretends to be your long lost friend and wanting to be part of it.
Oh how reckless desire brings us inevitably into the thick of it,
Even though whatever we want will end up leaving us feeling out of it.
What is it exactly we want that will put us into the middle of it?
When once we get it we realize that we don’t want any part of it.

We may not know from whence our innermost desires derive;
But in their true colors they with a certain insistence arrive.
Their first impulse seems to begin as an initial spark,
Enflaming everything in their way as they seek their mark.
A whim, a fantasy, an unmistakable urge to crave and devour,
Only to realize that their satisfaction leaves us feeling somewhat sour
And still have us wanting more with everything in their power.

What is it about our desires that they inspire us everything to obtain?
There is no simple answer that will lead us from their cravings to refrain.
How can we establish a discipline these impulses to inquire,
If we have no idea of their origin and their power to inspire.
At best we know they can be found within the jungle
Of wild impressions that run through the mind in rumble and tumble.

Still, they are not born in the chrysalis of the psyche or mind;
They seem to be the unlikely product of a person who is blind.
These forlorn orphans just appear without any feathers or frills;
Once they appear in full view, no restraint will keep the heart still.
Desire hovers in the background of our visionary world,
Stirring up our hopes and dreams like a banner unfurled
Or like hand-painted puppets, onto the world’s stage to be hurled.
They just want, want, want everything on their dangling strings,
All those things that they imagine a glorious life brings.
Our desires stir the imagination without showing their true intent
And leave us feeling hollow as a drum with their fleeting fulfillment.

These impulses travel under different nom de plumes.
Desire is the common word that everyone assumes.
We know what we want and hope not to want the wrong thing,
Fearing the unpleasant consequences that a faulty desire might bring.
Our wishes, yes, they come and go and are simple enough
And very often they are perfectly harmless and made of the right stuff.
Passions, however, emerge from the deep well of our emotions
Enflaming our desires into feelings of longing and obsessive devotions.
They seize us by the throat with all the power of magic potions
And take us down, down, down into the deep of our inner oceans.
Finally, our fundamental instincts emerge quietly from the deepest well
They serve our innermost needs without any frivolity to expel
And certainly without extra words a superfluous story to tell.