R 4 Poem by RIC BASTASA

no matter how tight you hold captive
the cat on the rope
even if you shut it from the windows of your world
into the vacuum of
the most silent of all indifference
into the consuming fires of hate
you cannot
hide the voice and put the face into
the insignificance of the ash
because the dust is dust and it will always speak
about the truth of an origin
because the past intimacy rises again
to put you back at its own prison

and in that clear pond where you once sat and took a look
there, there you can see again
the face of
Narcissus, the shadow of selfishness

it dives and then die there again