A Troublesome Woman Poem by RIC BASTASA

a woman of trouble knows how to weave words, fabricating them
into little monsters, not of lesser significances that litter in that
pestering pond that she creates herself,

she likes what she is doing and she likes

trouble, she makes trouble, she will die without trouble,
so sometimes she pulls out her teeth for trouble and cuts her hair for trouble
because you see her ugliness and you are caught in a reflex of telling
her

that she is ugly

and there again the trouble begins, you start it by telling her the truth and she will not like it,
she seeds the conflict and you pick it up, the conflict becomes yours
it is growing and spreading and she will be laughing because
a war is born

and she says, it is not her war, you started it, it is yours now.

she hides in the light and makes many shadows that soon she will fear herself,
she will mumble names, this so and so is trying to kill her, and she must
take revenge,
to justify her quest for violence,
violence begets
violence
her mottoo and she sees to it, that violence is created even without her

she fears herself though and hates the mirrors on the walls
she lists her enemies, plans her schemes of destroying them ahead
of their plans destroying her,
she has a lists of the faults and shortcomings of her friends,
(she has no friends in her heart
she has no heart in her body
her body has no soul)

she writes:
the sun is hot
the moon is a slut
the air is pushy
the wind is bitchy
the sea is salty
the child is naughty
her mother is ucky
her father is sickly
the world is leaky
everyone is pricky
the system is kinky
the priest is hankypanky
the mayor is itchy
and so on and so forth


a woman of trouble always falls short of herself measuring her height
against the rest
she will be either taller or shorter and this makes her so
unsatisfied

always comparing herself she feels always defeated, there are always
more of them than her so she feels so empty like a hot baloon
pulled by the air up
(only to burst at the end)

she floats she pulls everyone to her to anchor her emptiness
she will be devoured soon by the big mouth of her own
troubles, the horror of her own big mouth devouring her own body
like a movie
she will shout herself so loudly using the remains of her own tongue
she will hear
the screams from inside her but she will not listen still as inch by inch
the big mouth swallows her

noisy, garrulous, hysterical she will make her last scream
she is gone
her own mouth and sharp teeth have tasted her
she is gone
and what shall be written about her is this bitterness of cannibalism
and the ending lines shall be
(as she is finally consumed)

let eternal rest be granted to her Oh Lord!