with all our words
we say nothing
with all our money
we buy nothing
with all our love
we receive nothing

I am right
but you don't listen
I have good ideas
but you have others
I know the way
but you won't follow

you sleep night after night
and day after day
you find nothing about anything
that you can agree with
you say you don't know
and yet you think you do

life is a visual field
with no ones blood or guts
but your own spilling out
you feel your own pain
as sharp as a cut
in your salty mouth

but out there in the streets
others may be lacerated
shot and wounded in the soul
and sleep suddenly takes you
for another sullen ride
as the TV lividly flickers 

on the phone you talk
for hours in a lapse of anger
where humor finds a space
among the dull reveries
of irritation that inhabit
your round of acquaintances

you have grown into those things
you dread and hate in others
like weeds in a garden 
meant to feed yourself
your cold vision has supplanted
life's warm compassion