Conversations That I Hear Poem by RIC BASTASA

i am into conversations
i do not speak much i listen well
like an absorbing sponge
and people suspect what i am
up to, but i keep on listening
to people who still have
the vigor to speak and
brag and expose what is
inside their guts
what they feel foremost
is important for i like to dwell
more on feelings rather than
logic and directions and
useful advices on how to live
and die perhaps,
and so this time i am inside
a bus bound to a far place
a hundred fifty kilometers
from where i live
an old man, i am surprised
talks much, complains and
scolds his grandson who is
there born to tolerate him
beyond the threshold of his
incompetence,
as he talks and sometimes
subside into murmur,
the grandson keeps on
listening to his apple ipod,
not minding what the old
grandpa is up to,
i smile and fall silent again.

the bus speeds its way to
the winding road climbing
a mountain,
the wind on my face is strong
and my eyes seem hurtful
to the flashes of trees
and bushes
along this road to another
city

the old man is asleep now
his grandson still busy
with his own
music

night is approaching
the headlights of the bus
pierces the road
like what a conscience does
to my heart

this time i hear myself
in a last ditch of conversation
to myself
before i also get a dose of
my own sleep

inside the bus now
silence reigns like a boa
who just swallowed
a whole pig.