Our Friendship

                      

 (for CR)

It began somewhere in the dark

of grade school classrooms

kid drawing projects on the walls

mother's cookies on birthdays

milk and nap-time in kindergarten

A red brick building with a flat roof

upper graveled playground

for the older kids fourth through sixth

the lower for the little kids

Miss Widebody had the little little ones

in their own

Yeah, that's cruel but I can't remember

her name right now as the past

slips away in confusion and loneliness

but she was patient and sweet

The principal was a tall rancher

who would be tall even now

making an in-town living

for payments his acres couldn't budge

My friend lived on the next street north

I lived over the hill

The folks gave me a camera

that captured faces with no names

including his

I could not forget his

His father was killed

serving in the Air Force

My father killed golf balls

on Wednesday afternoon

We played war as kids

to make a machine gun nest

that looked across my gravel driveway

out of boards covered with dirt

There were Germans out there somewhere

I was descended from Germans

My college didn't teach machine gun

He saved his own life

in Vietnam

with the real thing

Barry G. Wick

The Return

An old shame has knocked on the door

to make remembrance dance painfully

With each footstep it is silly to feel

the growing of it that is best

turned over to an erasable yesterday

Father's parents are coming to visit

They are sitting on the patio

in padded redwood chairs

waiting for the grandchildren

to greet them since they rarely cross town

The one child missing from the greeting

is having trouble finding pants to wear

because they don't properly fit

as buttons won't button and zippers won't zip

these pants too small on a growing child

Eventually the mother takes an arm

to pull him out into the summer night

in a t-shirt and underwear

Grandmother says it doesn't matter

Grandpa smiles through his gold wire glasses

The hugs aren't remembered if given

That's what should be important

No amount of erasing will wipe away

the truth of these embarrassments

It is truth that begs its writing

Such moments return with a lowered head

even when years are suppose to drop

away as a child grows to manhood

then into the aged years grass of the path

of a man is worn away beneath his feet

It is the child inside who feels a failure

The adult also lets such emotions drain

into the same pot that becomes

so overwhelming no amount of self-advising

will knock down the castle of shame

If only hugs could free ourselves in a family

that rarely hugged or held a hand

Reassurance and forgiveness at any age

wipes away all of the dark stains

the created imaginations of a fleeing child

That child is still running to the unknown

to beg for a moment of unfiltered kindness

as he cries for all the times he paused

to hold his self reflected in smaller socks

running around the home he left behind

Barry G. Wick

The Gradual Colors of Blindness

Raised in the home of an optometrist

good vision was often the topic

as the family settled for a meal

in the nook on the corner

of the house with windows

that looked east to the hill

and west to the black mountains

where the sun blazed at its setting

Father mixed the complexity

of long and strange words

with something his boys

could understand

He spoke of his day

staring at the eyes

of patients with diabetes

macular degeneration

and the gradual loss of colors

For someone who had given his life

over to the care of those who

needed his care and concise observations

pain could be easily felt

as he spoke of someone going blind

Jorge Luis Borges was not his patient

because he lived in South America

far from the west of South Dakota

Borges spoke of his descending vision

losing blacks and other colors

one or two at a time in slow progression

Those who know these conditions

have sympathy for the one going blind

Yet thinking about these changes

and the blind who have crossed

the paths of my father's sons

there must be something special

in the loss of a sense

as other senses take charge

as the memory of visions

sharpen into the razors of thought

There is no desire to be blind

however eyes no longer drawn

this way and that

some kind of peace must settle

into the minds of those blind

who render the remembered

pile of black letters

into the word pictures

of the astonished void

that is the life of most people

Just as dust settles into the cracks

of a table or between the letters

on a keyboard

words gather no dirt

with no need for a polish in the mind

if they are properly dipped

in the colors of a blind man's creation

There's Borges yes but also

Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder

Jose Feliciano and Ronnie Milsap

Moondog and Doc Watson

These colors can make the legs weak

or force a toe to tap beyond all control

Father helped those near to blindness

see the dimming of the world

knowing well that something else

could rise from the pool

of remembered visions

What is left of each life's way

by accident birth or advanced age

needs no pity or tears of sorrow

but a closer look by inner eyes

of those who still can see

to recognize the possibilities

of darkness as a gift

for a golden frame

around the blazing colors

spilling from a changing soul

Barry G. Wick

Word Stringer

“Any great poem is one you wrote anyway.”--Richard Hugo

Those who put words

together

one after another

are not writers

image manufacturers

poets

whatever is believed

the occupation

or avocation may be

the real creators

are the readers

who bring their own

mental images to the paper

the pages

the screens

to the voices aloud

bouncing wall to wall

or dancing across the prairie

like light rain

No

rich and often poor words

bring thunderstorms

drop hail and tornadoes

inside heads

to flash their lightning

across inner eyes

the ones that cannot be

examined by an optometrist

until after brains

have exploded from heads

when they become invisible mush

for the dead to digest

To enjoy them

stay alive

to prepare for the apocalypse

when dictionaries are burned

sending smoke aloft

unreadable by everyone

except Indians in the movies

or destroyed by noon-day cannons

their loud utterances

demanding rest or nourishment

The King proclaims

only what is accepted

by those who are woolly caterpillars

in line for the next bush

unable to see anything

except the next crawly butt

Stop that at once

search all the words

being fed by the spoonfuls

to find the depth

of the gift of creation

Now blow that up

Mr. Hubble

Barry G. Wick

Recollection

A poet awakens from his dream

Before the paper records it

he wanders to his toilet

to let the night's words drain

He checks his underwear

for poetic skidmarks

Yes his dreams are written there

The fog of darkness hustles him

to the kitchen where he takes

his first medicine

a pill of words prescribed

by poetic doctors

Dishes from a poetic dinner

sit in the sink

so he draws the water

into his well of words

adding soap to billow

over its edges

He wants his poem to be clean

He rushes to feed more words

to his fish who are hungry

Sitting

he tests his blood to see if

he is still worthy enough

to record the memories of the dreams

that sleep has stored

He presses buttons to open

the paper on a screen

The pens on the tips of his fingers

splash ink where the clouds lift

as the sun enters

his drifting storm of letters

that create the gibberish

that poets always recollect

This poet's dream has him rushing

to his mentor to retell a story

that never happened

of a gathering of poets along a river

where they spilled their words

in a distant land of mountains

The senior poet nods

at his student's progress

deciding to give him a radio

full of his poems

attached to a window sill

by a separate base

wires piercing the wood

into this poet's collection

just as empty as a gathering

his student organized in the backyard

of his past life

The instrument is separated

and given to the student

who beams with pride

at the gift

that can never replay

the voice of the man

who gives it

No matter how many watts

the student poet applies

to the tubes and speakers

the words of his teacher

cannot appear in the morning haze

as the poet drools more words

onto a glowing screen

while he watches the bubbles

disappear in the sink

to the sound of bubbles

where his fish swim

to the bubble of memory

that pops in his head

He is ready for the day

surrounded by empty words

popping everywhere

a sonic bubble bath

that keeps his dishes clean

his fish alive

and his poem

empty of voices

Barry G. Wick

To Space and Beyond

Whatever empty space is

I think about it

and it doesn't seem to notice

my thought

That empty place is locked

inside the wrong of me

that I see every day

Those who are pleased

I suffer

are rewarded by it

It is an expanding emptiness

certainly not black

for something to be black

there must be something

to absorb the light

but inside the light fades

an empty jug

deeply empty

atoms of thought

pushing farther into nothingness

and I'm spread out

until the edges aren't just thin

this toast has no butter

this music has no vibration

this painting has no color

no frame

no canvas

I hang it on my wall

to remind myself

of its memory

which is nothing at all

sprouting into the distance

a growing plant

unable to gain sustenance

from its impossible growth

without a root

pushing deep

into a dirt-free soil

Barry G. Wick