...In Bed With Our Bodies... Poem by RIC BASTASA

today i remember you lady
and why? it was you who said you
shed tears on what i have written
and you always ask how i am doing

then i told you just like the rest that
i also tell when they ask, i am not my
poems

and you do not believe me, i am someone else
i give you mary poppins and the sound of music
is not the world a happy place?

i am always fluid, a man with a hundred eyes
and a thousand hands,
not literally though, since i pay
attention, even to the minutest detail about the
lives and feelings of other people

papa mistakes me for a priest and mother too thinks
that i could make a good dramatic actor

as a child i 've been drawing a lot of faces
am i the portraitist?
and i got clay and shaped a mermaid and mama
shook her head, saying these are all not true

i never stop writing though, it is a must,
if i do not do it, the theresias in the nipa hut
is telling me that i will die a violent death

i keep notes, songs, poems in my head.
if i crack the one who can find it first will surely
adore me for that

it does not matter, i have multitasked so well
dabbling from law to anti matter to chemistry and
philosophy and mind you

this is the jack of all trades speaking
in pain but who believes me? nobody nobody

when we talk it will be the top of our happy voices
on some silly stories and sorties,
who would believe me about the castle and the ponytail?

papa is dead and so is mama. They suffered, but how did
we really know? they always quarrel and so the truths of their
pains were never really exposed.

now we are facing a door. IF it opens watch out.
we will be sucked in and they will not be looking for us.

space is limited and they need that.
what we occupy shall then be theirs and they will say
we did all so well, and finished all our missions.

they are gone for good. and they will offer flowers and even
cupcakes, and expensive blue colored candles, saying

thank you, now everything shall be ours.
sorry, we easily forget. Goodbye everybody.

the world stays. for the meantime we shall enjoy it.
goodbye philosopher, we are just eaters and drinkers.

happy, just happy. in bed with our bodies.

so where are you now? stay safe and be happy.
and what is your name again?