Time Ticks Like Death Crawling In My Skin Poem by RIC BASTASA

at 6: 15
twilight,

darkness chokes the neck of day
i hear nothing
i tell the fence, steel and rusty, feeling death itself
on its rails,

that death makes no sound, it is only the time ticking
like the dripping of the water from the gutter
to the rocks
at the foot of the house


it is only its hands that move
round and round my body
feeling the irrationality of my wrist,

the mind closes like a window at night
the thoughts are turned off like the lights of the village

the self loses itself in this darkness
you hear nothing of its insanities

no one talks no one listens
at 8 o'clock in the evening all the eyes pretend that sleep is just nearby

in bed my hands argue
there is something wrong

the feet stamp against themselves at the foot of the bed
there are no changes without a bloodshed

that is still the philosophy of life
this world is not a playground for saints

this world spins upon its own foolishness
at the center is the hub of all selfishness