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Thank you to those who support me via my Paypal account: rikwrybac@yahoo.com. The government doesn't read my poetry. You do. Out of over 400 poems here on this blog by me, I hope you find one or more you like. Thank you for my readers. Thank you for your comments.

Saturday, October 29, 2011

Elvis Has Left the Building



It's a Saturday in October 2011

in the Christian calendar

5772 in the Hebrew calendar

4708 in the Chinese calendar

1432 in the Muslim calendar

and today in the Lakota calendar

in South Dakota

of the United States

where two people

of German Scottish and Norwegian descent

listen to a Japanese musician

with an English orchestra

play an Austrian-Bavarian composer's

piano concerto

on a Minnesota radio station

in a country he barely heard of

over wires and glass fiber

on equipment

made in China and who knows where

at a quality only available to the richest

of Salzberg and Vienna

250 years ago

and still

Mozart

hasn't left the galaxy



Copyright © 2011 by Barry G. Wick


Wednesday, October 26, 2011

A Bunch of Grapes


(for Camille Saint-Saƫns)

You played piano
then exhorted the crowd
to choose
which of 32 Beethoven Sonatas
they'd hear for an encore

At 11 years old

yes
a genius
but only youth demands such a choice
of its audience
being handed a bunch
of unique grapes
each with the taste
of its own perfect vineyard

Copyright © 2011 by Barry G. Wick

Two Poems from the Same Morning

An Automatic Yard Light During the Fall


Yesterday, the dark brown turkeys, four of them
waded through the dry, fallen leaves
only to fly across the white water of the creek
to find better peckings
This speckled backyard waits
for the whitetail deer
in the depth of a yellow and red fall
Perhaps they came in the colorless night
through the evergreens south of the house
when the light sparked on
slowing my descent into sleep

Mother looks at the same birch
day after day
and says how beautiful the yellow and white tree is
as it loses it leaves in a golden rain
Mother loses her white hair
and her fading memory
of this yard as she
passes through like an aging animal
in search of its next meal
and she only set off the yard light
during her gray years
a bright yard light that woke me up
to the rainbow of this life


Copyright © 2011 by Barry G. Wick




The Search

I see a yellow leaf caught
in an evergreen to stay the winter
I wait for the passing of deer
across dry grass, brown weeds and fallen leaves
I warm my hands in sun through dirty windows
that shows the dust on a flat table
I smell the dirty plates and unwashed towels
after a small breakfast
I am the legs that hurt, the back that aches
and the swollen joints in my hips
I sense the sun push away from this valley
when the clouds come between us
I droop like heavy eyelids
as the day props itself up on stony hills
I clamber for the earth to fill in
and smooth over these wrinkles
I search for the bridge that crosses
from this life into the uncertain

Copyright © 2011 by Barry G. Wick

Thursday, October 20, 2011

The Wee Hours

That's when I get up to go wee
then sit
to stare at a bright screen
across the darkened room
and worry
about everything I can't control
pretending to be powerful
able to build tall buildings
dream my grandiosities
when the facts strike me hard
and I know the crash comes
from around the corner
of the dreams that awakened me

and so I end up
in an update scenario
filled with multiple screens
which demand my attention
as they douse me with cool light
from broken promises
and wishful thoughts
then off to sleep again
to keep this boat
from its frightful leaks
of life in bondage
to the unseen force
a gravity that swims
though each minute
that turns from gold to jaundice


Copyright © 2011 by Barry G. Wick

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

No Moon Tonight

22:55 and just returned
from the Safeway
where Roma tomatoes
were a buck and 29 a pound
and I chatted with a lady
listening to an audio book
on a Fujitzu portable computer
Her son favors hard charging
games at high speed
on lightning Internet

Now, 9 miles west of Rapid City
the yard light sends its orange hue
to the neighbors and beyond
when the howling begins.

I can listen to Chopin
but when the coyotes talk
on top of Norris Peak
there's no chill like an old chill
and I'm in the darkened cave
eyes wide open
spear stick at hand


Copyright © 2011 Barry G. Wick