Just Along the Highway

((a poem for those interested in Unidentified Flying Objects))


We stop and pick up some fruit

on our way to the western shore.

South Dakota is a long ways

from California, so we think.

Perhaps, that is what all the fuss

is about when people see

disks, tubes and triangles

floating soundlessly

through our beautiful skies.

Other folks, well, not really folks,

stopping by our planet to buy

some fruit, fill up on water,

whatever it is we have to offer.

Sure, they could have stopped

in an invisible mode,

but that's how they pay us

for the stuff they take from us:

cow parts, photos of our colons,

recordings of our screams,

cherished video of our astonishment

they get to play to their brood

of whatever the heck they are.

They've started a whole industry

of book publishing and photo swapping.

Experts collect a few coins

from personal appearances.

Old soldiers get to tell

what they weren't supposed to tell.

Autopsies, not withstanding,

are probably one of the many reasons

they don't set down

on some Washington lawn.

After all, who wants a cold or flu.

Have you ever seen one of those things

with chicken pox?

I suspect for them

it becomes condor pox

with a side of cow pox

from which they grow horns

that drop away when they're healed.

“Don't pick at your horns, dear.”

We've broadcast

dozens of Hollywood horrors

during which our hero

eliminates planetsful of oozing

monsters, which to them

seem more like neighbors

with whom to share a barbeque

of abductee. Yum.

Be sure to remove all those trackers

and little whatevers

you insert in our brains

through our noses.

We wouldn't want the kids,

if they are kids,

to choke on one,

necessitating a trip

halfway across the galaxy

to a hospital for care

where parking one of those

big triangles has to be

a serious problem.

You think the notes you get

are nasty when you park

your Chevy in two spots,

just imagine crop circles

in fifty million

languages and every word

describing the nasty

things they'll do to their colons.

It may also be a reason

they come to earth:

free parking with no wait times:

Cow Parts and Colon Pics,

open 24 hours.

We accept your

Universal Express Card.

Barry G. Wick

The Recording of “Bleeker Street”

Listening to the recording

of a jazz group:

guitar, drums, bass,

trumpet, piano, and tenor sax:

Houston Person on tenor,

his session for an album called

Moment to Moment.

The tune is Bleeker Street.

So why do these old players

keep playing:

because once in a while

the muse attacks

dropping a bit of magic

on a recording or a line or melody

that makes the musician wonder

where it came from.

He'll think,

“Not me,

but I've just been blessed

with the touch of eternity."

How many times does it happen

on a musicians riff,

a painter's canvas,

a line of poetry,

for someone really great?

For pros, it happens more often

than you think.

Most listeners

won't hear it,

won't see it,

won't read it.

The artist keeps moving

from note to note,

session to session,

club to club,

in the hopes of finding

that feeling.

Oh, they'll repeat their finery

they know is perfect.

It's how they make

the loaf of bread

everybody needs to butter.

For the common artist

it might not happen so often,

but when it does

they might not make their crust,

but all that practice of bad notes,

writing of senseless phrases,

painting that seems like the sides of a building,

yeah, all of that

will shrug off like so much dust

that suddenly turns to silver flakes

mixed with gold,

and a few diamonds

for good measure.

Nope, it doesn't happen often,

but that's how

Person looks in his pictures,

with common notes whitening his temples

and gray phrases pushing out his mustache;

trying once again to find

that quavering shower of electrostatic staffs

notated with holy water.

Houston Person

is the cleanest tenor sax player

on the radio this night,

and I've just been washed

after his notes went

down the drain

on top of me...

oh Lordy, my soul is rinsed.

Barry G. Wick

The Supreme Declaration of Speech (Dedicated to Citizens United and David Bossie with the perfect name)

Sometimes the couch

has just enough

to buy the day old bread

from a store whose employees

barely feed themselves.

There are days of only one meal.

There are days of none.

From the bottom of the nation

no voice is heard

because there is no money

to make it heard

above the broadcast shouts

of well-fed men

who pound the table

with their meaty fists,

to complain about

they who have sallow faces

or the most hated color

of today's empty stomachs.

Off to war go the children

of the poor

who send home bread

or themselves in a box,

to make the pockets bulge

of the hand slammers

and the lip vibrators.

More rockets than empty pockets.

More bombs and hungry moms.

More guns to stun the runners

who have no limousine

in which to preen.

Money speaks loudly

high above the proud

who force themselves

to beg a dime from orators

who shine so brightly

on the nightly news.

If lassitude is crass

it is because the masses

cannot speak above a thirsty whisper.

This sound echoes in an empty tin.

Thin is in and pants fall down,

hand-me-frowns from facial muscles,

racial tussles about which

the white men crown themselves

with high and mighty words

for a hungry child

in the wilds of dying city.

It's a pity they can't speak louder

with the freedom of speech

their fathers never earned

on the minimum wage.

Too many rules spoil a conversation

and so does too much money.

Barry G. Wick

Glow the Bag

He leaves the store in the hand

of a recent widow dressed

in black with bright orange shoes

Her veil obscures very little

of the grief behind her dark glasses

It's not often a bag gets a poem

for in parts of this nation

similar items are called sacks

His name is Glow you should know

and if his poorer cousin the sack

should get the same publicity

the bag would be on her head

and the sack upon her body

Such are the wars between

the sacks and the bags

The sacks would remind you

they are usually made of paper

The bags are of oil-based plastic

For the sack a tree must die

For the bag a whatyacallapus

has decomposed deep in the earth

We can't name the sack here

because the woman only had a bag

and as we all know

bags and sacks get their names

when someone takes one home

Bag names are quite pronounceable

whereas sacks receive their name

from the sound they make

when the clerk pulls one from a shelf

As since each sack has a different sound

most humans can't make it

with their teeth tongue gums and lips

As for the widow we are confined

to earthly descriptions as she

saunters through her sequins

whispering her name to a bag

that needs to know who cradles it

in her arms soon to be en-robed

in what only a bald vicuna

will allow from a store in a bag

with the idiopathic name of Glow

Barry G. Wick

Is Poetry Dead???  Washington Post Article

If poetry is dead, then I'm dead and the people who gloriously visit my poetry blog are dead.  We're all dead, my dear friends.  And we're having lots of fun being dead...dancing our dead dance...reciting our dead poetry in the dead moonlight.  We consume dead coffee and dead scotch.  Dead art hangs on our walls as we listen to dead music....and "Dead" music.  We smoke death.  We eat dead cookies and dead cake.  We talk about dead Jesus and dead Buddha.  We share dead books by dead authors.  And if my health sinks any lower, I'm gonna be alive sooner than I'd like to be.  Damn, and here I thought I was gonna be dead my whole life.

My Day With Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention

Good morning, Frank.

Just sitting here

putting a brown track

in my loincloth

while you stick your head

through my speakers.

As an musician

with many heads

many hats

you rank up there

with the greats

before, during, and after

your reign.

Now, I'm going to put

my hand in the microwave.

What is the sound

of one hand clapping

while it blisters on high?

Barry G. Wick

The Truth Be Known

Good-bye birds.
Good-bye fish.
Fukushima...
gone?  You wish.

So long friend,
end is near
Is Jesus coming?
Not right here.

In our book
does it say
Atomic power...
no good play?

Christ knows not
atomic rays
kills believers,
so they say.

I live here,
it is said,
small bad things are
near my bed.


Barry G. Wick

The Fifer--a Boy with a Fife and Red Pants

It doesn't matter what Edouard Manet

chose to do with his eyes and hands

He could have created the same sensations

with clay or a dictionary full of words

Instead some great loneliness touched

his intellectual acuity to gain the silence

of his paints so well we can hear the note

It is what happens to the old we know

when they sink into their last years

One look from them and we are judged

to our depth in full knowledge

of our frailties and imperfections

so much so that we leave the old alone

in their smaller worlds with numb hands

In clay the old artist can feel every grain

instinctively knowing when to stop

pushing it around into the form he expects

Is there enough water and more questions

filter the information through fingers and eyes

more sensations than we know exist

until their crafts explode out of their worlds

Here, Manet, lets his subject stand alone

to hold a fife that normally rests

inside a brass tube that contains and protects

or is this brass tube not a protective item

instead being another instrument with which

the boy produces the sound his fellows

and the moment of marshal music required

The sash that hangs around his shoulder

is not simply one piece of cloth sewn together

but joined so neatly to a brass ring that seems

to be as polished as the buttons on his black tunic

brass that has always lead the parade

and yet there are no drummers or coronets

along side for Manet to exploit in equal daubs

It is shadow that lends the music to this boy

the dark line beneath the sash or behind

the fife on the palm of his hand so unnoticed

by everyone except the artist himself

who sees this light and the lack of it in oils

in unexpected overtones of the note being played

by the boy in the red pants and spat-covered shoes

Where is this piper besides the eye of the painter

though we are to believe his place is among

other musicians as his eyes betray the concentration

necessary when others vibrate columns of air

in unseen instruments standing at the side

of a road in a small French town where Manet

sees these scarlet pantaloons with a black stripe

The boy's cap is jauntily tilted to his right

perhaps like other boys in the invisible band

or just an expression of his own youthful style

this cap with red crown and gold braid

adds nothing to the music but is the child's crown

that Edouard provides to this youthful musician

playing unknown music on a ghost street

Barry G. Wick

Waiting for It to Happen

Playing a game to numb my mind

while it searches the world

for the next juice on which to run

then I open my favorite

internet jazz station

The flash is too bright for my ears

I close my eyes to be certain

every note is heard

when there is no doubt

I am in the presence of the great

Oscar Peterson and Count Basie

Lester Leaps In

You will always know what is great

when you hear it

when you see it

yes, you'll be swayed to other things

that will momentarily thrill you

I am

It's human nature to follow trends

but the time will come

when the trend won't be worthy

and nothing but the best will do

It will happen in just about everything

Art music dance poetry architecture clothes

everything

the hair will stand and skin with flash

Sometimes something is seen or heard

which create feelings

Electricity will shoot

through to the tips of fingers

the back of necks

down arms

there can even be a tightness in the gut

when its found

its found

and nothing else will satisfy

from then on

humanity will be honored

those poor aliens who visit

in their metal craft

simply won't understand

because they are afraid

to catch our diseases

oh, sure they may probe

but they can never find

what makes this change

happen

It happens

There can be one

standing beside

that experience inside

who is just as alien

as we're sailin'

to the feeling that's appealing

Damn those humans

Barry G. Wick 2015

Stumbling

 (for G. S. Sharat Chandra)

When I went to college

I owned a large Zenith radio

from which the world

came into my walkout basement

beneath the old lady

who would fall on the floor

with a thump

that would make me look up

to my ceiling

covered in hippie Indian bedspreads

Sure I went up to call for help

Then back to the dungeon

where I'd listen to the radio

all night to hear the latest

on the Symbionese Liberation Army

and Patty Hearst from KNX in Los Angeles

Exposed pipe wasn't as lovely

as the block print colors

contrasted with the sound effects

recorded live on the scene

of gunfire and police interviews

Three windows kept me in touch

with the outside

One to the south that looked

out over the town

and two onto the parking lot

behind the building

at 300 North East Maple Street

How strange it is to now

look upon that building

and see the apartments

upgraded with shiny new appliances

across the nation inside my computer

looking for ghosts of a different time

when Simon gave me an acid dot

and I watched a Roman trireme

being rowed across the sky

That night at his Halloween party

The great Chandra would open

my mind to the world of poetry

So now I've come to his old grounds

to find my writing voice

as I hold my walker tightly

sliding around my mobile home

only wishing

someone could hear me

as a stumble

to fall upon the floor

As I lay there

will I see Roman ships

rowing across my ceiling

and hear gunfire from Los Angeles

or will I slowly sink

into the stupor of an acid trip

the brilliance of my ceiling

once again covered in block print tapestry

from his homeland around the world

As that has not happened as yet

I know the day is coming

as life winds slowly down

like the words of this dead poet

stuffed into unread books

or sparked across a screen

the explanations before his reading

by who and what

the future wants to hear

plain language

delicious as simple block prints

from that bearded dark skinned face

Barry G. Wick 2015

Little Brother and Tall Boy

Here on the land

created by wasi'chu

Little Brother looks up to Tall Boy

Tall Boy takes him to the prairie

and tells him stories he learned

from the ghosts who now sleep

Here on the prairie Tall Boy

is a hero to the younger children

because he leads his war party

to victory after victory

Little Brother falls down a lot

and Tall Boy picks him up

to put him on his shoulders

Little Brother loves the ride

but gets too excited

while getting dizzy

Tall Boy understands

that Little Brother's mother

went to White Clay once to often

So now Little Brother is

the butt of jokes at school

from his own people

some of whom have
fetal alcohol syndrome too

He goes out to the prairie

to throw a stick for dog

Dog is his best friend

after Tall Boy

Tall Boy gets the cheers

pats on the back

calls from giggling girls

who are too shy to say anything

across the invisible wires

One day Tall Boy got mad

and jumped so high

he put two holes in the ceiling

on either side of a beam

Little Brother goes to see his

friend because it's been a bad day

He finds Tall Boy sleeping
at the end of a rope
beneath the beam

that holds up the roof

Little Brother will ask his mother

when she wakes up

when Tall Boy can carry

him on his shoulders

Tall Boy will sleep a long time

beyond his life on the reservation

beyond the life of stars

beyond the time of ghosts

Barry G. Wick

The Pleasure of Your Company

Such a perfect day

with people in the park.

They throw a stick for dogs.

Parents watch children play in sand.

No one could forecast

this day joins these legends.

Separate evils for untold years;

through these two, men took hold.

On this day doors close behind.

They stroll toward the peopled green;

to their eye's surprise these partners meet:

Greed and Indifference now clasping hands.

So where one is found

the other stands close behind.

Married for eternity these minds combine.

From these maladies all other grief descends.

This day it was when two friends carved

into lands, into trees, into every living thing,

through right of ownership to each abhorrent quality,

now its our charge we take: to rid them from our world.

Barry G. Wick

Passed Another Midnight

As if it were a grade

it is past another midnight

beyond two in the early morning

when music becomes instrumental

so that words don't change this

Heavy guitars were not promised

by this station somewhere

who told the listener

acoustic was more important

than electrified screams

So back and forth it jumps

from this screaming into that pathos

no matter what is wanted

the mind will not settle

into the needed softness

Satie feels his way through the dark

by some juvenile performer

heard before on piano

not so out of tune as this

Eric is not rolling just embarrassed

Mention this dark hour to anyone

they will figure it out

the full dish rack in the low light

an open window to chilled air

tapping fingers to resolve a mood

Barry G. Wick