Love poem

if I seem antagonistic tonight, it’s because I am
which is why I had the drill bit sharpened
and your skull in the vice
I did not think you were listening, so thought to open your ears

but then I was driving in the rain
and an unexpected CD came on
a compilation of songs
that I, and a lover I once had,we had made
the music set in train the soundtrack
to a scratchy super 8 movie of me
in a room of friends who loved me
bathed in the laughter of little children
being given small names of great affections
babe my love possum
and being danced to every song
by a person who limbs were in constant argument with each other
who danced me all the same because they knew I liked it
and though I had wanted for gratitude
I had not wanted for care
in this movie of me with its good time soundtrack
my cup had runneth over
yet I had not listened then either

I walked out of that house with its music
thinking that goodness and mercy would follow
but finding only the silence of strange streets
I plugged my ears with wool and lived as selfish people do
like a stray dog sniffing for scraps
at the back door of cheap cheerful restaurants

what does it matter if none of us hear or ever eat
or are ever danced or if there is a point at all
what if we only reside in the absurd empty
between the want for meaning
and the knowledge there is none

who cares

meet me in the arc of air that hollows out between us
hide your poems where god once was
I will listen to you in the unending terror of all of existence
the perpetual rape
relentless auto-fellation
and the seismic absence of compassion
I will never never look away
you may want for gratitude
but you will not want for care
and I have nothing better to do right now