Cold hearted

I am told sometimes

By those few closest to me

That I appear unfeeling

It goes from accepted joke

to truthful criticism

And I disagree

Cynical maybe but not

Defeated by any of them

I remain unbroken by the rocks crashing

At my sides

Nor taken by the saltwater

Not harsh or inhuman

Although the humans – well…

But still not cold

Quite the opposite in fact

My heart

This heart I feel beating

Now in my chest

Is a raw nerve

An open wound

It is a raging campfire

Burning through a rainstorm

And it must remain lit

Otherwise I look around and

This

All of this

Will dampen it to ash.

And then the churches lock their doors

And the people ran

Not away, but toward the altars

Towards broken bread and cheap wine

Towards Him

And so consumed do the buildings become

Overflowing with single celled organisms

That white collars swing thick ropes across the

Great wooden doors

And heave them together

The mourners and preachers and believers

Stuck together like one holy puzzle

Man woman and child

Are closed in and safe and

Proven right

At least in their own minds

The shared mind

The terrified mind

Friedrich would laugh

And Wilson and McKenna

And Bucky Fuller

Meanwhile the ghost of Voltaire, pisses

Down onto the ornate steeple and roof

Those inside exclaiming ‘praise heaven for

The tears of god!’

And outside

On the shining cobbled streets

We few are left with

All our hearts desire

The space and freedom and divided truth

Anarchy and love

With no sirens or flags

No clowns dressed as dictators

Our own version of the world

And the world as it should be.

Tool

There goes me, really really slowly…

  

Dan is a weak swimmer

Dan wants to live surrounded by the largest waves in the world

Dan is a liar

Dan wants to be loved by everyone

Dan has weak legs

Dan wants to get stronger

Dan has a bad memory

Dan keeps drinking red wine

Dan doesn’t want to copy Bukowski

Dan can’t help but write the way he does

Dan is scared of black people

Dan is scared of white people

Dan feels pity for the hundred year old Indian man who lives across the rd

Because he can see himself when he looks at him

Dan hates his name being written or spoken over and again

Dan loves too much too often

Dan feels too little too often

Dan wants to get paid for his poetry

Dan hates journalistic and professional writers

Dan idolises Gallo, and Dali and Billy Childish

Dan wants to meet Robert Anton Wilson

Dan gets on with women better than men

Dan needs to get more red wine

Dan is a potential murderer

Dan is full of ideas and hope for the world

Dan wants to just stay in bed a bit longer

Dan wants to turn over after the alarm clock cracks his head

And sink into blonde hair for 2 more beautiful hours of sleep

Dan is a scoundrel

Dan has confidence that things will be ok

Sooner or later.

(circa 2006)