Talking To Oneself Poem by RIC BASTASA

why do you follow me?

i repeat
i do not have roses in my hands

i do not carry a bowl of soup
a basket of fried chickens

do you like the contours
of my back?
there are no muscles on it
nothing smooth like the skin of a morning leaf

do you see a map there?
or a pot of gold at the feet of my rainbow?

how can i ever have
a rainbow?
there is no pot of gold
pure myth

are you falling in love with my
tracks?
they are not like the tracks of
gazelles
nothing like the softness of deers

they are all sculptures
of mud
animal dung are its
possibilities of content



unlike all journeys
you must know by now that mine
has no
exact destination
there is no time here
nothing like the calculated arrivals of
weathers
nothing like the predictability of the
seasons

why do you follow me? why are you always following me?
i am a little bit disturbed
likely and sooner i will be perturbed


do you love the bounty of my
emptiness? it is an empty bowl on the side of
the abandoned house

are you not scared by the monster
of my nothingness? they are the ghosts who cannot
locate the entrances of their rests
they are those long dead but who could not find
eternal peace
they are the restless screams of the unthinkable souls
of Hades


i always move away
that is the only kind of motion that i know

shadow, oh shadow, why do you follow me?
light, oh amazing light, why do you cast it upon myself?


this is the only pleasure that i have
i talk to myself.