When Finally I Wanted To Rock Poem by RIC BASTASA

at 49
i surprise myself and the rest of those who are watching:

i want to rock
i want to seal my ears with bass and drum music.

i want to bind myself with the electronic guitar strings.
i want to jump and stamp my feet on the solid

rock, i wan to be deaf and be dumb,
and be the subject of their talks

in the market and in the church,
i want to be shamed, and be the object of their

ridicule. i want to laugh the hardest like a
big rock falling from a cliff

and crushing hard on the sea with
splashes like cyclones but then

at 49, it is too late,
it has gone beyond the page of the calendar

and it is too late.
Solitude found me. And there was only Mozart
with his soft piano
his violin on a wintry day.

i sit on a
rock and keep on waiting.