A Vocabulary Poem by RIC BASTASA

i have a new word for you,
to illustrate
what my poetry is all
about,

it is this word: blabber,

it is not the one
who reveals confidential information for money,
i am not that
sort and my poems are not
that kind, oh, it is something else,

blabberblabberblabberblabber
bladder,

could be a bladder
one that stores urine
but there is no urine here, i smell like a wild flower
like
a dama de noche, a champaca, an ylangylang,

something else really,

not the betrayer, informer, squealer, rat
canary, fink, snitch, stool pigeon, stoolie, stoolpigeon, sneaker, snitcher,

not a sneak
someone acting as an informer or decoy for the police
neither am i a
copper's nark nor a
supergrass, grass

well i am more like this: a verb form of

i speak about unimportant matters of my life
(don't believe me
i am just ironic)

rapidly and incessantly
gabble, gibber,
palaver,
piffle,
prate,
prattle,
tattle,
tittle-tattle,
twaddle,
blab,
maunder,
clack,
chatter

i am a
mouth, i speak,

i talk, i verbalise,

as in yes,

i talk about a lot of nonsense

blather, blether, blither, smatter, babble - i

talk foolishly

and so finally here we are at the core of
this matter:

this is the poem that babbles and croons

and you are the baby,
and i am not the mother, the father, or the big brother or sister:

plain poet, that's me,
i am so sorry

the flabbergasted
blabbermouth of them all.