Internet Cafe, Robinsons Fuente Poem by RIC BASTASA

perhaps all the people here
skyping
are talking about business

or about flights canceled
wanting for a rebooking

it shames me
i am talking about an emotion

perhaps if they will know
that i am writing a love poem

vis-a-vis my age
my looks, my dress code,
my glasses,
my ring-finger, and my black back pack
with less clothes in it

surely they will burst out laughing

if they ask me
perhaps my answer shall be about being lost

not about love
(for how can i afford myself being humiliated in such a public place like this?)

there are Americans on the other side of the cafe
there are lovers kissing each other openly after sipping brewed coffee

x x x

but being about being nothing at all

or perhaps i will tell them
that this world is about to end tonight

buildings crash down to earth
seas growing tongues in their huge mouths

swallowing us all
and that i do not mind

how this world annihilates itself
or when it ends
or even if it ends this split second
like a

wind of your eye

i will not of course
tell them that i am growing tired and unhappy and
discontented

that this feeling of unfairness is a vine to my old body
a snake to my arms


they do not mind it
they will not give a hoot

they shall keep on typing on their keyboards
doing business

people are still frightened
i am funny
i write about love

but i tell them
i am not frightened anymore

when the waves come
when buildings are swallowed
when islands sink
when all the people in the streets scream
when the malls vomit all its customers
the buying public
this crash commercialism of all sorts
softer hair, smoother face etc etc

i sit calmly
and give all of my hands
in a hundred percent
surrender

well,
all of us are dead somehow.....