A Statement About Art & Friendship Poem by RIC BASTASA

It is the friendship that she carries well
On summer day

In the writing workshop
She wins their hearts

When she is asked to read her poems
Or say, show her masterpiece

She merely smiles
Her friendship is her piece her only masterpiece

Her smile is her only word written on
Her face

And they all say it is enough
A smile can save the world

But I beg to disagree
A smile cannot save me

Last night i wrote a poem written
With my blood as ink on my face

The angst on my crumpled paper
And they ask me to read my poem

This afternoon when everyone
Is tired and irritated

My turn, I think, I decide to give them my smile
Like her friendship, my compromise

I get their approval and I think
It is her friendship that kills

Literature that suppressed art
It started with Mona Lisa, now it

Will always be, perhaps, the scream
Must die, popularity does not like it.

I know I have to cry alone
In my room and make my own kind of literature.

Someday the world may find it and love it
Sorrow is suppressed and happiness is fabricated

Friendship has always been politics
And art is hidden in compromises

Only to come out later and too late
The people will say, “we all love this one! ”