By Now My Friend Poem by RIC BASTASA

By now my friend
you may have figured out what it means to be me

that sometimes i live in the land of the opposites
where i say is what i do not really do
and when i do
what i have not ever mentioned to you

and that sometimes in order to survive (and make you feel good
for you to live like the way i live my days in the land of the
living)
i, too, must live the degrading life of the black spider
a widower
who makes the web of lies to catch my prey and eat
the whole day of its flesh and
then rest for the rest of the week
praying for the forgiveness of what i just did
rationalizing that i am but a spider
living alone
and not denying what loneliness can sometimes
do to our lives
how it hurts us and how we hurt in return
just to get even with what we think
is unjustly given

By now my friend
you could have seen how this magical gossamer web
cling between the branches of indifferent trees
you could have heard
the gentleness of its silence glistening against the sun
and yet deadly and dangerous
to the innocent flies
to mosquitoes too complacent to their journeys
in the final destinations
for my necessary personal consumption.