The Model Of The Community Poem by RIC BASTASA

inside a man in my stomach speaks
and it is drunk as can be heard with the use of
words hastily spoken and i pretend that i am listening,

when i pretend, actually i hear nothing
i am listening to another voice outside my ears
it is the song of a bird at nigh time
when all birds are supposed to be asleep except
the bats which do not speak to me but busy with
what they catch for eating,

to survive this ordeal of having someone live inside you
you are compelled to be a pretender forever
and people who do not understand and who mistake your silence
as a virtue, will always like you for by then to them

you are a man of peace, you live in the house of your silence
you disturb no neighbor, you raise no eyebrow,
you spread the gospel of contentment, and all around your houses
are the doves that you feed everyday without fail.

i tell you, i am about to crack like a glass
with hot water boiling inside my fragile emptiness
but i have mastered this art of silence, and to a certain
extent have learned to live with it like anybody else
who like me for what i really am not.