A Poetry Workshop Poem by RIC BASTASA

got invited to this poetry workshop
telling me
these critics
that they like my work, the way i put my words
like glass,
shiny colored glasses shaped like
ballerinas
in my cabinet

a menagerie of sorts like i am a keeper
of transparent dreams

so there i go, on free board and lodging
and oh yes, the place is so poetic
and i really like the scenery
of shrubs and bushes
and heights

on top of a hill where i can see lines
of sea and land
separated by my
kind of imagination
the sunset
the sunrise

the cool winds at night the
warmer sea breeze during the day
the kind of wind
that flaps the window making a sound
of a slamming door

i remember then the house
of my youth
where papa always slams
the door before mama
and the quarrel so endless
and we were not even
considered
as

creatures of the house
and they all begin
to leave
one after the other
and i remember
they all die
anyway but that is not the end
of the subject of my poetry

i see everything
in the workshop
where we eat and drink and discuss
my possibilities
my potential
as a great poet one day

but it is all in the mind
of this critic
it is all in my mind
until she begins
to dissect my poems
like a cadaver
nerve after nerve
muscle after muscle
bone connecting
to another cartilage
to another bone

until such time that all i see
are dead bodies
of my poems
surrounded by vultures
eating each
rotten flesh

i close my eyes and
feel the
wrong crowd all around me

what they do not know
is

i believe in myself, i still believe
in my
way of putting words to feelings
colors to blandness
scents where the dead are dead
and some
little dramatics where they are needed

just to live
and just be alone and still imagining believing
the beauty in things
in people

in words that flow like a free wind touching my face again
fresh like a flower with few dews still sticking
glistening
till the wee hours of my mourning