The Self...... Poem by RIC BASTASA

it happens
you find yourself detached
and the other self
sits there
in the living room
relaxed and
confident and you do not like
it, for he does not look like
you and he does not act like
you and you detest it,

the other detached self
looks at you too, stares at you
from the tip of your hair
to the tip of your toe
and too, detests you and
at the end, it accepts you
as you had been that from
the womb perhaps even
to the tomb...

he smiles at you, with all
compassion and understanding,
he must have been here
for quite a long time,
much earlier than you,
and he calls you, "bitter'
and too "crude" for the times
of "enlightenment"

till now you say, i cannot accept
you, you, a detestable thing,
an evolution, uncalled for,
indescribable, unclassified,


and you stand there
wanting to hit him with a truncheon
rebel, and pest, and monster alike,
but you freeze, the other has the power
and the truth, while you only
have this temporary form,
this shape of the moment that would not
last for a lifetime....

and he sits there reading a newspaper
and taking his own time and you
walk away, not knowing when to come back,
and you shall go to places
where you will meet the emptiness of your life
and you think
that there is no point living life the way
that detestable self proclaims you as like him.


you shall meet people that you do not know
and do not wish to understand,
and you shall live life that way,
shallow and moving, and nothing to keep
nothing to save,
nothing to live for,
and live by.


you have a bicycle and you keep on pedaling,
and then there will be no stopping,
there will be no darling, and there will be
no keeping.

yes like a river, like the wind, like the
moving galaxy, and then you move along
with everyone else,
and say, this is it, this is it, what self is there?