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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.

Monday, March 30, 2015

Religious Freedom


There was at one time
freedom to believe
before one perspective
was written down

Once things are written
you don't stand a chance
when some intense believer
will force your mind

Greetings from your god
come from your neighbor
who kills your new-mown grass
he holds quote signs

Better to lie down now
than fight your hard path
to the stake's barbecue
try a quick piss


Barry G. Wick







Shelf Life

These words have a shelf life
though they may never sit
on a shelf

Who knows what will happen
to the typeface of the language
in 500 years

If you can read this
then things are still okay
but there are changes today

The words may not mean
what they mean now
The environment may change

Chemicals in future brains
may see different colors
or no color at all

Poisons polluting the world
may get worse
and people will not be the same

These words may disappear
because they weren't saved
on acid free paper or liquid memories

Certainly these words will disappear
because they were saved
as quaint ones and zeros

The passion it took to create
this combination of words
will not be recreated in new people

Impermanence is the bane
of all writers and won't change
unless there may be no readers

Perhaps you are reading
every other word printed
on some new screen or direct input

There are more words here
than the ones you now read
because music was playing

In one thousand years
we may not have fingers
that once used pens and keyboards

Scoff if you will
the most important book
one day won't be a book

Everything will change
a hundred times over
and this may be the future's bible

Unlikely possibilities teach
impossibility to those
the future will think impure

That's enough for today
Don't look over your shoulder
Some things refuse to tap it




Barry G. Wick

Friday, March 27, 2015

Some Lessons

We have no choice
but to learn to be human
from other humans
If you've helped create children
let them be human
support their choices
and their discoveries

Dogs know how to love
unconditionally
Learn love from dogs

Cats understand independence
Learn independence from cats

Fish live much better
in clean water
Keep water clean for humans
and fish
Fish aren't happy in tanks
Don't make tanks for humans
or fish
any kind of tanks

Birds that soar
see the world from different heights
Climb mountains
Get high enough to see your world
It is hard to see birds in dirty air
Be sure to keep air clean for yourself
and birds

Waste little
Ever know a bird or a fish
to have piles of garbage
where no humans would live
no

Raccoons are picky eaters
There are few very fat raccoons

Let animals live where they belong
close zoos and places where animals
don't belong caged

The sun warms the earth
The wind moves large amounts of air
Water flows downhill
This is the energy to use for humanity
Plants and grass belong on roofs
Live underground under the grass
to save energy
live there first then be dead there

Healthy belief enriches and accepts life
Unhealthy belief causes wars and kills life

Gossip is a rope
that runs to
then ties up people
Cut the rope

Elect leaders not stallers

Allow criminals to be punished
not tortured
Treat them with kindness
while they are away from others
with whom they cannot play

Please and thank you
are magic words
keep them up your sleeve
to always appear
when in front of your audience

Everyone can make music
tap your feet loudly
whack a pot with a spoon
though quietly appreciate others
as they make their music
then cheer ecstatically
when they've finished

We can't live forever
that's why forever
can live with us now

Anything can be art
You won't like all art
You can thrill to some

Your prayer belongs
between you
and the intended deity
no matter how deaf it seems
Keep it to yourself

If you make a mistake
its your most valuable possession
because it will teach you
to never do it again

Let others judge you
They can sometimes be right
but keep your judgments of others
to yourself

Look often at stars
you will see your next life
and your children's children
somewhere above you


Barry G. Wick

Thursday, March 26, 2015

An Old Story


My Aunt used to tell me
stories I had told her
about where I was
before I was born

The older I get the more
I seem to know that place
exists beyond time and space
a separate place for all

There we cross the bridges
we could not cross
in the life just finished
looking towards the life ahead

In all its glory perhaps
just a simple room
with someone to talk
about the mistakes we've made

It all seems a dream
pictures flash across the brain
of what it was like
and what it will be again

The next won't be different
because the soul sees
through the haze of dream
to learn the higher phase

Oh great universe let me step
beyond this pain to the new
through the silver door
that reflects where I am


Barry G. Wick



The Bright Star


Whichever star is closest to you
whether a foot or a lightyear
becomes the brightest star
so it must be with people
if this be the case
then no person will go without
children will have enough food
the elderly will live in comfort
the word fear will be banished
no one will be without love
for at any given moment
we are close to someone
if it be an inch or a thousand miles
in this land is music
where people dance the day
flowers will never be cut
rain will last just long enough
clouds will cool the dirt
where no rock has ever been
to cut a foot or break the plow



Barry G. Wick

Wednesday, March 25, 2015

For My Seasons


The earth suspended in space
tilted as it is
creates the variations
in parts of the year seasons

People create their own
progressive visions
often more than four
certainly more than ten

the direct shine of babies
unashamed of its breath
as the teachers will claim
that sin is in the first

a first look at another person
to know their difference
from fingers to feet
with taught skin or wrinkled

a knowledge of love
the depth of its pain and pleasure
as wide as a night sky
or as a rock freshly cracked

the inside and the outside of space
what is mine and yours
as if it somehow didn't belong
to the whole of burning leaves

the hair in a comb
some of them with color
a first day betrothed
or gray as skin in final stillness

these are offered as some
of a trip around the sun
measured and never the same
as leaves turn to earth

So many to glory in
as music winds it way
up the spine through skin
scintillating in a bold breeze



Barry G. Wick

Tuesday, March 24, 2015

The Appointment


I have made an appointment
to talk with myself
at a palace full of mirrors

The secretary ushers me in
to sit in the chair
where Buddha sat on the floor

The mirrors are ahead of me
but to the far left
are windows looking out

I am given the instructions
that I will be late
to this meeting for which I hoped

When I finally arrive
I have been thinking
about everything in my life

I tell myself that I must believe
in strange musical notes
that keep playing behind me

I lay flowers at my feet
that suddenly walk
in a circle around me

Under other circumstances
I would walking out
because the interview exhausts me

Over my left shoulder the windows
open by themselves
when the flowers tickle my toes

My feet begin to move me
into the morning light
where the music is loudest

Hold me close I demand
as the garden beckons
in a concerto of perfumes

A bell rings loudly three times
when Buddha breaks the chair
to the horror of the secretary

I float near the open window
expecting nothing less
the meeting ends abruptly

The floor meets my singing feet
when the answer flows
that I am not hired for this position

The interview did not go well
as I walk through music
grabbing notes to lessen my fall


Barry G. Wick




Sunday, March 22, 2015

The Laughing Floor


You live on earth
in your comfort zone
because on earth
there is earth, air, fire and water
in one form or another
and every time you build
a floor
it laughs beneath you
eroded charcoal
in your drained lungs

irreplaceable

Your tongue turns
into a hardened lingam stone
upon which some may pour milk
you can not swallow

Appreciate the time
when you no longer exist
It was yesterday
It is tomorrow

Now is the time to laugh
at how you build a floor
everyday
always in the hope
of its lasting
when it is already gone
at the first nail
of the joke it tells


Barry G. Wick 2015

Tuesday, March 10, 2015

Inner Beauty


Page after page
of what photographers
believe is beauty
today's fearful face
is the tin can that waits
for the gun to go off
some epicanthic fold
a dimple on the chine
will attract the meat seekers
who will surround the subject
for a short twinkling
then off to another lad or lady
left-behinds
slide down the greased poll
of fame and beauty
as the symmetry begins
its inevitable sag
former beauty becomes
a beggar in the street
their eyebrows run away
clutching a nasal hand
that falls away
as next year's bullet
tears away the perfect abdomen
Narcissus clouds his mirror
with no face



Barry G. Wick

Wednesday, March 4, 2015

Andy Warhol Advises ISIS


Oh, you're doing it all wrong
you only need one beheading
you take the picture
and repeat it over and over

Take the neck wound
use it to print
by dipping it in different colored paints
then onto the canvas
One canvas will be pastels
another canvas rainbow colors
another black and white

photograph the apostate
only once
his accepting face
his grimacing face
his dead face
his dripping wounds
his headless body
repeat these images over and over

By killing so many
you remove potential buyers
of this art from the market
and upset potential supporters
they will be grateful
so grateful they'll buy
the images you have to sell
you'll make lots of money
enough to buy
tanks and planes
so you can march into Rome
and plant your flag on the obelisk
in Vatican Square
on the Washington Monument
and the White House

Art galleries
will see you have talent
it may take a few years
just look what I did
with 32 soup cans
just one victim is necessary
to make millions for your caliphate
That's another idea
just take the word caliphate
and repeat it over and over and over
on a canvas
before you print that word
paint a color in the space
of that word then print
the word
print the word
using different colors
for each letter
It'll catch on
It'll be art

Instead of killing
cartoonists who make fun
of Mohamed
Use art to make fun of cartoonists
Show them having sex
with sheep and donkeys
Say, that would make a great
black and white movie
I have lots of friends
who will help you make
this film
We'll show it in Central Park
People will pay admission
on Pay-per-view
across the world

You can make cartoons of singing and dancing
lifeless heads
You'll make so much money
that you can build a mosque of gold
as the central image
of Caliphateland
Kiddies will ride little rolling carts
made to look like pigs
with the heads of bad world leaders
who are your enemies
Get someone to write
It's a Muslim World after all
the song will be infectious
repeat it over and over and over
and over and over and over
After dusk, jets will drop fireworks
above the crowds eating chickpea hotdogs
The children lick candy suckers
in the shape of the lifeless heads


Barry G. Wick