Mr. Gray

Mr. Gray

Good morning Mr. Gray

What lies have you

For us today

We listen intently

While our backs are bently 

Barry G. Wick

Poet Barry G. Wick

These Days

These Days

Hobble and scoot

Hobble and scoot

I mope around the house

No longer a brute

I'd spend these years

To make amends

Inside I'm thinking

Do I need Depends

Days like this

I slept too long

I didn't wake to the sound

Of a gong

And now that breakfast

Has filled my belly

I'm losing my Santa

Just watching the telly

How hum ho hum

I'm  a really old bum

Begging for something

I never gave some

Barry G. Wick

A really bad poem

For a blah day

Prayer

Prayer

[for Mike Zimmerer and Jacqueline Law]

There is no reason to listen

Or even read these words

Locked into the prison

Of my own choosing

Wearing gray today

Over my gray soul

There are many chores

Blocking in my mind

An internal play on stage

The characters are told

To slowly walk and turn

Writing the unsaid lines

It's jazz now on radio

Piano grand singing

Sing to me from my future

In a large room filled

With keyboards when

Pressing the note that cries

My prayer to poets

Releases me from sins

When I wrote nothing

Only as I sat alone

Letting the world see me

Fragmented in a pie tin

Barry G. Wick

Poet Barry G. Wick 8/21/25

The Clock

The Clock

When today's children get old

Will they want to change

Their clock’s battery

Surely they won't remember

Clocks that used to be wound

My mother collected clocks

Each with their winding key

It's how I feel

Get my key to the slot

Give it a turn or two

I'm winding down

There's dust on my head

Worn paint on my hands

When fingers updated my time

Spinning around minutes or

Hours

It seems no one will reset

My hands on this old clockface

My time begins to stop

Millenia will pass

I'll be right twice a day

If there will still be days

Yet my face could be blank

Just like those new watches

Who's battery discharged

My time seems near

Truth is no longer

On the face of clocks

There are no faces

We agree upon

Barry G. Wick

The World Changed

The World Changed

 A man eats ice cream every night

to gain weight for the person

who is looking for a "feedee"

Fat sells the body for love

Another man loses weight

looking at slim young men

not hoping for their comfort

but to recover a youth he lost

A woman invites men to join

her on a website for spam

or love that will fill her heart

her secret is untold so join

Everywhere looking for something

and finding nothing but lonely

hours in the electronic faces

that fill a screen in the hand

There are no reasons for this

except your eyes are the profit

for a large corporate raider

expecting money to buy more eyes

Barry G. Wick

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