2023

Today I met over 100 people who didn’t love me. 
From offensively indifferent to forthrightly contemptuous 
they would have me boil in a vat of bubbling jam and gladly so. 
I was to them as they were to me: misshapen
reflections of modern humanity, humanity, humanity. 
 
Back in 2014 it was still possible to take a wave of love 
from an unsullied 26 year old stranger with just enough heart space 
for birdsong or pareidolia or beautifully unusual things. 
But tomorrow I’ll meet 200 people who don’t love me. 

I’ll look into screen-dead work worry eyes 
to brains that society shrivelled up like takeaway bags  
that roll in the wind over dirty slabs, that get buried on rotting mulch,
that becomes strange black soil. 
 
Without surprise, I’m flying away to Patagonia  
to make a ridiculous cathedral out of sea rocks 
and turtle shells and driftwood. I’ll mount 
a stained glass of a moon over a river, 
lay on a bed of warm stone and get the love that way.