The Man Who Dipped His Fingers In Salt And Lick Them All Poem by RIC BASTASA

he dips his fingers in
salt and licks them all

people look at him with
all surprise
he is weird and they do not
like him
He is detestable
they say

he does this everyday
all the days of the week
all the weeks of months
all the months of those years

the people shut him away
they close their doors
they vomit when they see him
they look at him with contempt
they throw him away from
their cities
they ban him from all
other countries

he keeps the salt all to himself
he eats them and drinks them all
he has become sick
very sick like one rusty nail

he died and people did not
mourn for him
good riddance so to say
the city dances in jubilation
the world turns into a fourth of july

if they only knew him
well that i know him to be
they should have known how
he disliked salt
how all his senses revolt
against this instinct
of having his fingers dip
in salt
and of his having his tongue
lick
and how his mouth eats
all the stuff that
destroys his body
how every night he vomits
how his system fails
how he knew that with all these
he is actually killing himself

people do not know
there are things that happen
without his control
there are times when one
has no choice
but to dip the fingers in salt
no matter how bad it turns out to be
until he dies

society denies instincts
conceals the existence of vampires and gnomes and
parasites and ghouls
society keeps its own beautiful face
hides the scars and the disease

who wants to eat salt all his life?
who wants to rust like a nail and die like a brown dust on the ground?
who wants to be a scrap of iron and melt in salt?
who wants to be a robot? a man of hay?

nobody. i repeat nobody.
He never liked it himself.
Society has not asked
it never cares