Hot And Silent Oil Poem by RIC BASTASA

to be a poet of reality
one must collect real stones from the past

the past can be misty and everything
because of time can become yellow

with age like a letter written long ago
and inserted in one of the pages of

a book. Even the present can be
uncertain. The future fickle. But to

be a true poet, one must always go
back and take what was necessary and

left out in those secret attics. Those that
they all want to be forgotten because they

think that they will just harm us in our
contented places. Our comforts need not

be sacrificed by memories.We are growing
now into the light, the window, and what

use is that to dwell on cliffs where the only
possibility is our falling? Death is the constant

fear of pain.I, too, am a poet of reality, I know
what hurts me, but I am embracing it again.

I want to be stronger. Near perfection.
I want to be that child beside Papa

watching him remove the scales of the fish,
slice the flesh, and remove the gills, and

frying them all, in that hot and silent oil.