Inside A Dream Poem by RIC BASTASA

sleep can be a cure
for remorse,
there is this temporary
deletion
of guilt

inside a dream the soul
does a lot
of reconstruction

my love for you for instance
oh, it was not brave enough
to withstand the fear that i may
not after all
deserve you

until now
you never know the reason why
i left you

it is this woman inside the dream
of my lonely nights
that begs always for an explanation

her hands are the hands of a beggar
while i am that man with a hat and shiny black shoes
whistling and
walking away from her gaze

her tears are like rain
the temples of indifferent men are wet again

it is this dream that wakes me up
with hypertension
and so i go to the kitchen rushing
to take a glass of cold water
and swallow this pill
again and again

there is an overdose of guilt
and no pill has ever taken it away
from my heart

i dream again
but the woman is no longer there
i have become the beggar myself
on a tattered conscience

when i wake up
i spit upon myself
oh, i was never brave enough
to tell her the truth
that this love is not strong
that she deserves
another man

i go out again
on another unplanned trip
watching those gray clouds
pierced by the
nose of the plane

when you are on top of this world
you feel so clean again
so new, like a traveler
stepping out
from the door
of the Boeing 707

in this land
where no one knows me
i am this guy
with a crocodile smile
caught on camera
and posted
in Facebook
tagged by friends
who care for me

some know the real story of course
but out of respect
do not make any comment

I'd like to tell them perhaps
that i am never broken

and no one even inside that dream
can ever break me

well of course,
in a loveless state
in a state of affairs where love becomes so irrelevant
upon a self-made
declaration

i am telling you
no one gets hurt

i am in an island now
faraway
where no one hurts me
and i, in turn
hurt no one

tonight when i go to sleep again
I'd like to be a man married to another woman
happily living it out
in a nice niche
where there will be no questions asked.