The Alligator... Poem by RIC BASTASA

detach the cover
the book is naked
its face is blanked
it has no identity

open the page
there are no changes in
those prints
the letters still make
the command

the sentences end
in their usual paragraphs
in a new sense,
to signify a little difference
there shall be no periods,
as you notice
there are only commas,

there is a meaning to this,
something in us always moves, continues, serrated,
double-edged sharpness of the mind
sometimes, a comma creates a sense of suspension,
like a bridge, a lull, a disbelief,
no one likes it, because everyone in us, trained as we were
in schools with always in mind
completions, and endings, we, do hate, incomplete returns
like a rumor with nothing definite as to
what happened to the
subject,

the scene is frozen, nothing thaws it,
the word is hanging, the journey of the feeling is still at the middle
of the map, the red dot still unreached,
and there is no stopping and this precisely makes you breathless

like you are having a swing, like you are
suspended in a rope still not well tightened,

feel it, do not be horrified, just feel it,
precisely, this is the truth about our existence

sword of Damocles up
and the gaping mouth of the abyss beneath
looking like
the more than sign in
basic mathematics

the mouth of the
see you later alligator,