All That We Can Care Of Are Those Made Astray By Inhumanity Poem by RIC BASTASA

what we have
are five dogs

all street dogs
adopted

all that we
can care of are those
made astray
by inhumanity

we feed them
and they guard us

so how can we be so
lonely?

so many times
i ask that question

so how can we be so lonely
still?

all that we have are
five stray dogs

staring at us in the eye
sometimes

that they are our best
friends

and the we are their
beneficent
masters forever

and what is forever
but just this moment
of adjustment

my wife is singing her old
love songs
in the middle of her sleep

and i am figuring out
he map of
my own salvation on
the ceiling

in this labyrinth
where can the graceful
exit be?

where is the promised
treasure of my
youth?

where can i find the
rewards of my persistence
and hard labor?


and then the lights
went out
and then i feel that i
am so lost
as a wooden boat in
a tiger storm

and outside the house
it is
raining cats and dogs
spears and
arrows

and then
the dogs howl as though
the bad spirits
are coming

i know that today
in the heavens
there are no stars
no moon....