Pinch Poem by RIC BASTASA

i look at my face wrinkles are being drawn like a plow making furroughs
on the ricefield,

wrinkles, i am getting wrinkles,

i look at my arms and i touch it, they are loose now, like some clothes
hanging loosely in my body, emaciated by lack of nutrition,

i look at my hear, i open it like a pettry cash box, i see some scars
and some loose coins for change, i like to break it open and leave
it that way, i am saddened by this

emptiness, this pain,

i stand now in the mirror with a picture on hand of my youth

i look many times finding how
time drenched me with old age, my hands beginning to tremble my
mind forgetting more and more of those memories of my youth,

i refresh myself, i get this clip and pinch myself, i remember

i am still alive, and that is luck enough, a friend of mine just died today,
cardian arrest,
and i am trying to do some little thinking, what if i will be next?

i am finite, i pinch myself some more, some more, some more.....

till i turn blue, till i bleed, who cares?