I Still Have No Words For It Poem by RIC BASTASA

must i stop writing about love
& lust?

do you know what happens to
me afterwards?


you ask me to stop
you claim that it is disturbing you

must i, as you, suggest, write about the pains of
others,
those whose mouths do not know what words are
proper for their
sorrows

those whose lips
are cracking estranged as they are
from the fluency of our learned
articulation

i am guilty of this kind of misery
i too have
what misery is there but perhaps because i am still
attracted
enticed to lust and power and love

i must have a good reason to laugh and stroll and dance and sing
perhaps, this i say, perhaps, my misery is lesser
in height and weight
it yet cannot see how big is the misery of others

i cannot yet speak for them
as i still have no words for it.