A Little Treatise On Writing Poem by RIC BASTASA

A Little Treatise On Writing

Rating: 5.0


if your problem is about what to write
or how to write

if you still have the wish to be one good damn
writer
aiming for awards imagining
the night that is set for your
recognition
on center stage adorned by their loud applause
and standing ovations

i understand
you are young, full of hope,
you are dressed with ambition
your eyes are two suns
your eyelashes
sleeping willows dancing with the chinese
if not american winds

if your problem is how to begin
then you are lucky enough to be another beginner

i am different
i have turned sour
and bitter
i have become all that you do not wish
to be with

my problem is how to stop writing
i am being grabbed by words
i am being snatched by ideas who have become monsters
to my existence
on my head hangs the little devils
biting my scalp
pulling my hair
commanding me to write every word
hastily

when i was young i have mistaken them as
cherubims

i have become a slave of all these letters
they whip me as they ride upon their horses
my wish is to stop
but i just can't
my wish is to die
but i just can't
it is not that smooth and easy
to insult myself with
a stab or a shot
or drown myself
with that kind of stuff

shit on my hair
rocks in my heart
gnats on my bottom
worms in my skin
scars on my bones
bats in my eyes
leeches all over my body

what do you see now?

i am skin and bones
my cheeks shrink to my gums
my teeth are falling
i am humiliated by my previous
ambitions
i am turning into dust

i am different
i am addicted to this stuff
and i cannot stop
like

a train moving on unknown tracks
without brakes
a plane flying in unknown skies
with the knowledge that its fuels
are diminishing yet
with nowhere to land
forgetting what a perfect touchdown
could have
sounded
to the ears of the
world

young as you are
be happy that you are trying to begin
that you are trying to think
about what to write and when to start

you are choosing beans from their pods
diamond from sand
gold from mud
you are making bread from ordinary flours

you shall drink the potion of time
and it shall poison you

do not be like us
do not be like me

because we have known our beginnings
it does not mean that we know where our destinations shall be

we have regrets having taken that beginning

i shall not talk about them
those ahead of me who to some horrible extent have taken their lives
by their own hands
blood spilling down to their bellies kissing the soles of their feet

writing is a personal thing
a matter that is kept a secret until the right moment comes

i shall talk about myself
i am getting old, i am weary
if you know my one and only wish
you should not have started writing.

i know what you shall say
ah, i can anticipate that

I've been there. I am not crazy.
I assure you, I've been, and shall always be real

like the sun of your youth, oh like the moon of your dreams, oh like your usual stars of your ambitions

like all your cliches, your redundancies,
your misspelled words, your wrong choice of periods and commas,
your doubts about the next line
your way of screening your thoughts like sieves and sifts
hoping that THEY may finally like
you....

and your hopes that something in this world is not really that bad
and empty
and unkind


AFTER ALL.....it is now your turn. i wish all your best.
regards to compassion.

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RIC BASTASA

RIC BASTASA

Philippines
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