In The Poverty Of Their Souls Poem by RIC BASTASA

there is noise in the silence of the room
it goes louder when the lights are turned off
i am trying to listen to it
what it is going to say but it is too crowded
like the biggest mall in the city filled with so many
people talking within themselves as they walk around
window shopping and just like anybody sufferer
in the poverty of their souls is buying nothing

i still listen attentively and hence not getting any sleep
till dawn breaks into a dimly lighted morning as outside
the world is still colored gray, shadows of trees etched
on the horizon, clouds are heavy and then as nature
so edicts, the rains begin to fall

and then i listen to the rain, its sonorous cadence
its monotonous tapping and dripping from the sky
down to the roof following the given rules of the gutter.

the noise subsides, the rain stops gently, the pond of water
slowly mirrors a gaping light, showing that hidden blue sky,
white cotton clouds like small ships coming in to the ports of
my newly found silence. Now, the noise resolves and so
i can soundly sleep alone in my room with a window open..