Molting Snake Of Nineveh.... Poem by RIC BASTASA

Benny, it is because you want to please them
that you stay indoors
like a decorative vine
choking itself on the
dark beam of the house

i remember we finally make it
to the shore
but still imprisoned on that thought
of not giving them all the worries
you never step on the deeper part of the
water
you prefer the shallow ones
as water like tongues
wave after wave
lick your thighs and tickle
your toes

i am trying to discover what food
have you eaten
what did they feed you for all those
years
of cloistering?

Benny, look, you must understand
that they are all dead
we both buried them
on that pompous day

you need to be shaken
you still need to be hurt again
you need to jump on that murky river
that threatening dark blue
portion of the sea
where the giant octopus shall eat
and then
vomit you

or that shark that gives all the
fears
that big fish bound for Nineveh
it must swallow you whole

and then spit you out in another
crazy town

perhaps you can be returned again
back to the
smiling self, the happy one
drunk and then resurrected


as i ponder today on the snake molting
in pain
to be its biting self again.