Purification

Purification

The orange peels are drying

There are a few candles

Some glass jars are filled

With fuel and wicks

There a few poems

It's likely they won't be read

No one will hold hands

The body will be gone

Must the spirits do it themselves

Surely the person will have

Begged for forgiveness

For all their sins and mistakes

There is no common process

To give someone an entré 

Into the afterlife up or down

Some tribes and the popes

Create their ceremonies

But atheists just chew crackers

And slurp homemade soup

Or from some tasteless corporation

Say a quiet prayer to whatever

The deceased did not believe

No legacy will be extoled

Lives just disappear now

More and more families break

Friends move where no one knows

Dreams are just ignored

At the end of the day

Valued things are stolen

Or sold to a bidder who

Did not know it's possessor 

Bits of spirit go with each

Barry G. Wick

Boiled Eggs

Boiled Eggs

Yesterday I boiled a dozen

Brown eggs my friend

Brought from the food bank

Even when I had plenty

All the other eggs 

Had not been boiled

Sitting quite happily

In their carton lounging

On the stove water heated

Like starting a small torch

To seal the edges of elastic

I might use in sewing a jockstrap

I wear the jockstrap from yesterday

While my eggs sit unboiled

In their carton with other eggs

Egg cartons are like jockstraps

When the water starts to roil

I prepare an ice water bath

To finish eggs outside their hot bath

I think about dipping my eggs

One by one the eggs jump in

To the boiling water dreaming hard

My timer starts counting ten minutes

My friend reads the book I gave her

I check the timer like I

Watch the pot boil that bubbles

Around the brown eggs

My jockstrap itches for a dip

Near the end of ten minutes

I watch the seconds drop off

The ends of the earth

Like ships scream into space

The bowl of ice water dances

With the ice and chilled water

In anticipation of having eggs

In its belly when turning a page

One by one I transfer eggs

From hot water to the stainless

Ice bath wondering If these eggs

Will shrink in their jockstrap carton

Much later the eggs still 

In their shells go into

The refrigerator for tomorrow's 

Breakfast Raisins and toasted bread

I scratch myself in a clean black

Jockstrap I sewed several

Weeks ago while dreaming 

About my eggs being cool to love

Barry G. Wick

Awake

Awake

What is this again

I'm awake like I woke

To see something then

I'd never seen

Fifty years of sleep

Lulled into darkness

By needs for money

By needs that tore me apart

Now here in this year

I see flies that sing

The yoke of music

Blistered notes of jazz

Dear Meandra I slept

In your loud bed of tranquility

Heavy breathing between dreams

As I tour these jumbled measures

Barry G. Wick

Losing Weight

Losing Weight

Everywhere I look

There are thin men

Without an ounce of fat

They live in their pictures

Their short videos

When women complain

They are objectified

They don't see the world

Of objectified men

In tight clothing or nude

To show every artery or vein

In their semi hard or erect

Penises 

Muscles or not

I don't fit in their world

More than not

I've carried fat 

Looking in mirrors

Hating my fat

Hating myself

Now in my old age

I lose weight

With veins showing

In my old hands and arms

Skin hangs under my arms

Stretch marks show on

My stomach and legs

I eat less and less

I'll never have what I see

In other men

That I objectify

They will never 

Come to see me

I will grow older

Smaller

Lonelier

Trauma

Trauma

Shut away from a world rage

Creates a place on your own stage

Where light is turned down dim

Breakfast cooks on a recent whim

There is no more incessant pain

As the joy brings sleep with simple rain

There won't be any touch or scratch

No hurt with mother's words that match

Careless children in a weakened state

As beans and salad flee the plate

Be alert to this simple sign

The lines that fall to page with rhyme

Behind them is a needed time

For rest and peace this home is thine

Barry G. Wick

Puer natus est nobis

Puer natus est nobis

My Latin is a little rusty

Where rust never formed

Not a dead language

Just parked in some corners

Designed to force

The less-than-catholic

Into translation frocks

Where we uninitiated

Wear a temporary collar

to pretend we are moved 

By such erudition

I had my own reason

To leave my church

Yet some still cling to theirs

To spray the world

With their Roman candles

Creating flame spewed

Over the rest of us

To grow the weeds 

That should have been sprayed

Sparked centuries ago

Filled with hate and stakes

For refuseniks of accepted lies

Barry G. Wick

-

the way it for me today

June 24, 2025

Hi dear readers,

I'm 73 and get around badly on my stage 4 osteoarthritic knees.  I use a walker.  My plans began a few years back.  With no money except Social Security and gifts from friends.  I knew I'd need a mobility scooter some day.  I've lost close to 160 pounds with more weight loss planned.  Mobility scooters are rated by weight.  More weight, more money.  I grew very heavy sitting with and caring for my demented mother.  But yes,  I opened my mouth and shoveled in food.  I weighed 530 pounds when I moved to the Iowa City area.  I'm now around 370 pounds and going down.

A mobility scooter has to moved somewhere in order to go into shops and malls....or parks.  That takes a dedicated carrier.  With gifts from friends I purchased  this carrier for my 20 year old jeep.  Used, normally priced new $170 to $240.... this was for sale for $100.  

Months ago I acquire a huge sail for free.

When I'm able to find a mobility vehicle

I'm going to sew a cover.  If haven't checked lately, sail cloth ranges $28 to $36 per yard.  I estimate I have 20 plus yards I acquired yards free from a nice man cleaning out his shop.  I have yet to take out the sail from its huge duffle, but there's time.

This message is my prayer to the universe

To help me get an electric scooter of sufficient strength and power to help me around the rest of my years.  Here I am as of mid-June 2025.  Ì

If you Or the universe can help in some way my PayPal account is: rikwrybac@yahoo.com 

I'm grateful for everything I have now.  My life.  My new friends in  Coralville and Iowa City.  My old friends from Rapid City, South Dakota.  My poetry tutors, my simple inspirations.  Oh,  out of the over 560 poems here, I hope you find just one you like.  Who knows.  I may have written just one good poem.  One great poem?  Probably not.  But that's for the ages to determine.  Your PayPal gifts?  Simple gratitude is all I have.

Barry G. Wick

  

Dance

Dance

We have to dance even if we sway

In our wheeled chairs

We have to sing even if we just hum

We have to know art

Even if we only feel sculpture or

Touch a wall hanging made of rope

With tin cans full of dents

Many feelings fall from us

The fruits that grow

From the rain of lìfe

Barry G. Wick

The Lonely Audience

The Lonely Audience

We stay silent in this passage

From visions of a bright stage

To bones in padded seats

It's as if clouds pass over us

As they create flashing shadows

Leaves sparking in the trees

Bees circle in front of Spotlights

Here we watch a world baking

Unable to throw itself into fire

Insane leaders driven by gods

Soak the earth in living color

A puppy laps it up to live

Boys stomp in playing  puddles

The lonely audience picks losers

Barry G. Wick

All the Questions

All the Questions

Midtown New York

People outside the library 

My mother worked 

At the library

Probably Flushing Meadows

But who knows

My parents are visualized

Sitting on the steps between

The lions silent unmoving

To the roar of traffic

Did Leo 1 beep?

Ah, just a horn

During the war conversation 

About their work

About their fears

I never asked the many questions

I could have asked

While they lived

My children are silent

Without the dialog

I ask them of their lives

Their children and growth

Old like me they'll want to know

All the answers I never heard

Barry G. Wick