The Piles Of Folders Poem by RIC BASTASA

today i am bringing another folder
at home
i am supposed to read them
ah, all these lives of people that i do not
personally know, the things that they keep
on doing against each other
these cains and abels
these black sheep and fauns
these sphinx and sea monsters
i will be learning their minds and studying
how to read them
how they speak and how they
justify evil
how they explain like magicians
taking rabbits from black hats
and converting newspaper cuttings
into money bills
it will be fun, i suppose, and i will be spending
more time than watching The Piano
on tv,
i will be lost in these labyrinths of motives
and acts
people kill sometimes for no reason at all
i am taught that
and some people admit what heinous crimes
other people do
for nothing at all
there are subsumed stories
exceptions to the rule of human behaviors
and there will be exceptions to the exceptions too
ah, my mind is strangulated by these criminals
my thoughts becoming too convoluted in
a tunnel of plots
but i will not be dead
neither shall i be intimidated
i will not quit
in fact, i will have my last laugh
giving what is due to the other
clapping for the innocent
giving justice
letting the criminal go on the basis
of reasonable doubts
crying with the widows
and consoling the orphans
talking to God
and making judgments for the poor
and then at night
i sleep without any pillow at all
too tired
i sleep on my hands
on the headboard light
unswitched
off.