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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.

Sunday, August 26, 2012

The Distance from Me to Me


Was it always this foggy
I remember crossing
the Bay Bridge years ago
unable to see anything beyond 10 feet
around the car

and that is what it felt like
as I grew into an adult
littered with the thoughts
of everyone around me
inside my head

I couldn't stand up for myself
direct who I was
into anything for me
I always heard voices like flames
and I was meat on the grill

No thing seemed right
no direction was the best
and so I wandered through
the cloud high above this world
and didn't even get wet

Now suppose you've reached my age
having tried so many paths
and none of them seemed right
there's no success in the modern sense
no feeling of accomplishment

And now I find the same cloud
hanging around me
some ghastly shroud ripped
from the graveyard of past lives
I now fight to keep from tightening

My friends move in their directed lives
filled with comforts of self
confident in their own worlds
their lives secure on single roads
they've chosen years ago

Why compare myself to them
I think inside this high cloud
full of unfulfilled dreams
It's only a matter of time
when all this fog will blow away

My suspicians begin to turn
to the sense of all lives past and present
to realize a fact
that what I feel today is what
all feel at different points of life

We circle in our clouds above
trying to see the ground
that has never been beneath us
and no matter what our comforts
they all shall disappear

So what I did to take as many paths
to breach the distance
from me then to me now
is what I did with what I am
all other voices silence in this peace


Copyright (c) 2012 by Barry G. Wick




Monday, August 20, 2012

There is a Bird



I know there is a bird
sitting on the trough
that gathers rain
from the covered porch
at the back of the house
the rain that falls when it wants
to fill these small rivers
that become larger rivers

This bird is there
if only for a few minutes
before he flys away
to poo somewhere else
because that is how I knew
he was there

Suddenly a white glob
dropped through my
line of sight
between me
the air in the house
the double pains of door glass
the screen on the door
the air on the porch
the screen on the porch
me looking at the tree
and poo falling to the ground
from the ass of a bird

Oh Bird with poo of white
please take your unclean ass
to another porch
where there aren't poets
who see everything
and dream of a world without
white poo
It wasn't what I wanted to see today

I'd had thoughts of living on the prairie
while putting a bedspread in the washer
living alone on the prairie 500 years ago
trying to survive the hail and the winter

Instead
oh imageless bird
because of you my thoughts
are of poo
now poo on the prairie
herds of great pooing buffalo
and one dumb naked poet
dodging enormous flops of poo
hail stones and winter snows
and it's not even time for cocktails


Copyright (c) 2012 by Barry G. Wick

Sunday, August 19, 2012

Of Oaths and Darkness


I remember when I signed
my oath
oh not a signature
because I did not know
how to write

it was what I saw
bright lights
the first feel of hands
the vague images
of first experience

they come to me now
from 60 years ago
remembered visions
from what I believe
was my birth
in a hospital not far
from what would be
my first home
on a gently rising street

first memory
of a promise to live
in the light
and away from the darkness
and yet life has a way
of showing us those first visions
though the darkness
that surrounds us in the years
that follow

the haze of the foggiest bridge
the dull closeness of a wet rubber glove
things seen and felt
and yet somehow eclipsed
surrounded by a halo
through which we stumble
not drunk yet inebriated
with an overwhelming sadness
as if one is walking
through a cemetary
filled with family

it is the oath we who live have signed
to go on through this field
to return to the doorway
of the closed room
from where we came
to which we promise to return
enlightened aware bemused
filled with laughter and sadness
a giant tank filled with beads of life
blended into the fullness
of debilitating age
whose promise has been fulfilled


Copyright © 2012 by Barry G Wick


Thursday, August 2, 2012

The Justify Sonata for Brain and Colon


What I bought I now sell on Ebay
to gain a few bucks for what
I no longer use
which I used to justify
my existence
and the string of bullshit
to which I attached myself

Now I realize
the manufacturer
is bidding up the price
on my used item
against the great unwashed
in order to keep their new product
valuable in the marketplace
so that snobs will keep buying
what they probably make
for pennies on the dollar

They bid on my thing
to keep their thing posh

(It's like tattooing your cock
with the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel
instead of a barber pole)

And that's the point isn't it
to build a stack of shit so high
that people will feel good
they've hired you
or bought your product

and you thought this
was going to be a poem
filled with rare Amazonian orchids
and nectar drool snot droplets
with rare and phantasmagorical fauna
enough for ten expeditions
and one-off high-buck phrases
to make you feel justified
to spend this time
to absorb what I write
when a poem is only a piece of shit
sticking out of the poet's colon
able to make that musical splash
in the toilet of your imagination

So how is that a sonata you ask
(the poet references the title
of his majestic creation)
hey it's a musical term that makes
you think I'm edjikated
and trying to pull
images from various encyclopedias
of human experience
when all I am
is another corporation
to be sure a poor one
trying to game you
into a purchase
at a price that will make you
believe you have something
of value
Thank you
dear reader
because my share
of your unconscious mind
is now assured


Copyright (c) 2012 by Barry G. Wick