In Your Own Skin

((This poem spoken by the author))

Whose skin were you going to wear?

The prophet is no longer available.

There have been plenty of them

and most have grown much bigger

than the flesh they wore in life.

Poet has been over done

since so many made the ultimate

statement by jumping ship

or outliving their youth

when they were passionate.

Parent was given up some time back

when the word queer attached itself

to a torn psyche full of guilt

now past history of torn rainbows

but still it's what was learned.

Protestant seems to fit

without all the religious baggage

carried on a long train

full of previous nailers who now yell

something disrespectful in a crowded tomb.

So, now to run out of “P” words

means a start where the alphabet

separates itself from grunts

and gestures with means unknown

though some were wrinkled when worn.

To look at these hands that pound

out a simple language

with gaps that search

a forgetful noggin for the “right” dictation,

the scars belong here to no other.

So what is found is owned:

a cloth of memory that surrounds

all that has pretended and accepted

this year of simple messages,

this skin that passes its owner's test.

Copyright © 2013 by Barry G. Wick All rights reserved.

The Speed Of Life

[My great-grandmother, Gertrude Bertelsen Gunderson, wife of South Dakota Governor Carl Gunderson, was a well-known poet in South Dakota, founding the state's poetry journal “Pasque Petals”...still in existence. She wrote poetry for another time and every once in a while I feel her presence so much that words come to me like prairie lightning in an older style. This poem is an example of that.]

The Speed Of Life

I moved so fast I could not see

the best the world had offered me.

Now, windows give me outside views

Not one thing seen will come in twos.

Each part of what I see unique.

My gaze, my interest at its peak.

You think pine needles just the same,

But each is different I can claim.

When I can leave I hear all sounded;

The creek across the rocks all rounded.

And sometimes smells to me exclaim:

I am alive, I have a name.

So turn your car to greener land,

Remove the key, on grass now stand.

Take all inside, leave nothing out,

You'll find yourself, what you're about.

Copyright © 2013 by Barry G. Wick All rights reserved.

The Voice

Somewhere between

the unheard beep

of a bat

and the low rumble

of the elephant's roll call

the human voice

plays through the silence

of dictionaries

or sitting at desks

in the habitats

of darkness

dreams tossing words

through oblivion

Across the sea by cable

or the alleys of the old

the voices betray

everything we are

though strange

to the rest of our companions

we walk with

yet the dog may know

the meaning through repetition

the chimp by sign and ear

But what does the crow

across the creek

think of this yell

to leave my sleep undisturbed

by the racket so many create

Whatever they say to each other

I'm damn mad

and by their continued bird rants

I'm diminished

to the level of stupid humanity

who can't even fly

without some idiot's contraption

strapped to my back

as it sputters and spews

a smell the ass of a crow

could never fart

So off they fly

in a laugh

at me who thinks

all the world is mine

as I stand on a balcony

to squeak at crows

as the resplendent unseen letters

of this unknown language

explode from my mouth

upon their bothered conversation

Copyright © 2013 by Barry G. Wick All rights reserved.