What Remains

If a king

the armor fills a corner

of a museum or library

the same for all the words

handwritten typed or printed

if the paper is good it may last

if on vellum perhaps a bit more

Human and animal skeletons

occupy boxes and drawers

in the backrooms for researchers

The past is dug from deserts

the tops of mountains

or all spaces in between

Mother's ashes are

in a plastic five gallon bucket

with 5 copies of a CD

filled with photos of family

and memories of her life

Her pink outfit with the pink mink

the ashes of her favorite dog

The soil will gradually wear away

revealing the plastic

for the sun to bleach

or for a future anthropologist

to study or store in a drawer

The armor I wear will go to a business

that deals with cast-off cotton

that turns fiber into money

or better paper to print this poem

that wasn't printed anywhere

and left for the ages

as ones and zeros

Slow decay and electrical wars

will turn these thoughts

to a lightning of mush

My skull will be in a drawer

or ashes moving with storms

down the rivers

down to the ocean

down to the sea with boats

where my father gradually sifts

through the seabeds

where a colorful wrasse

will nod as it swims by

It seems to say

that I'm not looking too good

these days

as its scales flash

the last line here

in remembrance of me

damn

the fish will be electric

They teach their schools

to imagine

our useless attempts

to save our world

in crumbling buildings

ground to dust

our ridiculous self-importance

sliding beneath new continents

Barry G. Wick

Dearest Allen: “...successful failure(s).”

We met at your Boulder retrospective

of avant garde films

by your friend Harry Everett Smith

Our brief conversation

about G. S. Sharat Chandra

who said he'd met you in Iowa City

I'm in that neighborhood now

writing writing writing

nothing in particular

after a life of failures

It's odd that I should find

this written dedication

to the Learys just days

after the same thought

occurred to me

The list of failures keeps growing

in my unsuccessful life of failure

The failures melt

to leave small piles

of dirt not unlike snow

in parking lots

Someone

scoops it into a trashcan

If I were a spider

I'd fail to make gossamer

near a corner

unseen in darkened room

Barry G. Wick

The Christ from a Mobile Home

“Road Song” by Wes Montgomery

cheers the darkened room

through speakers and headphones

worn when a video call

was necessary to chat with a friend

in Rapid City

which recalls a moment on the road

the dream from last night

Omaha Street that runs east and west

where the street is full of flood water

the air mattress being held tight

in a phantasmagorical flood

then to beach on another street

to walk back to a trailer home

that needs an examination

of an overheated electrical switch

everything so real

in full color

then to leave to go to the shop

to do the necessary woodwork

to select the right nails

just next door

shared with a woman who looks perplexed

at my attire

“For religious reasons?” she queries

Yes religious reasons

why else would someone wear

a loincloth but to float

in a disaster

only to return home

like so many ghosts

from the real flood

many years ago

their bodies stripped of all clothing

by rushing waters in the dark

with no jazz to accompany

the screams of terror

If it was only possible to be Christ

in a loincloth nailed on the cross

to guarantee life to all the lost friends

if it was only possible to be His Father

to stop the rain from piling up

in steep canyons

or to give a floaty to each person

so they can walk home

without becoming invisible

no vocalizations of pain

no tears from surviving relations

This is an odd dream

for someone who doesn't go

to church

Time was spent in the bars

after that real event

drinking wine

with my apostles

Others went to pray

It must be my turn

Barry G. Wick

At the Edge of Spring

This was suppose to be a day of rain

with snow in the late afternoon

Outside

I set my nose to play

searching among the simple changes

that announce a gradual turn

I want the season ahead to be

No flowers yet

Leafless trees fret in embarrassment

their brown leaves top the grass

in a sick frosting

Vicious clouds allow the sun

to torture me with sorrowful peeks

That yellow ball for a child

to play with

my skin still hidden beneath

layers stitched together

with sober zippers

In the southern hemisphere

they turn to winter

as we turn away from it

If only a person could have

a year of summer just once in life

something the rich enjoy

whenever they want it

but the plain of white

that now stretches before me

makes its demands

as I've lost a decent

fit for galoshes

Barry G. Wick

Newspaper

I can still buy a newspaper

with columns

organized like hot dogs

boiling in a saucepan

side by side in the roiling water

the ink made from soybeans

which will please all the land owners

surrounding this field

neatly plotted with cracking streets

full of speed bumps

with side by side mobile homes

just enough space between

for a little lawn

and a tree or two

That's not news here

in the pre-death zone

for either people saving money

with dirty children boarding

on the pavement trying hard

to miss a canyon which could

send them sprawling

or gray-haired boredom babies

waiting for rebirth

The fifteen mile per hour signs

mean what they say

as if yelling in white and black

were still the fashion

in newspapers

where color now exists

to compete with every screen

old cathode ray tube or light-emitting diode

Newspapers have a hard time

putting video next to the political story

with politicians yelling

even when the video wasn't started

No sir or madam I am not interested

in the price of tea at Walmart

until I'm ready to buy tea at Walmart

which may not be possible

because I have news for everyone

I hate liquids without caffeine

and enough sugar to make a syrup

neither of which I can have

caffeine keeps me awake

while the sugar eats away

at the nerves in my painful feet

the pain moving slowly enough

as if to suggest someone reading

a newspaper slowly and with feeling

the stories appealing broadly

as the papers get narrow

magnifying lenses at the ready

just as another child

finds the cement rising quickly

as bruises lend hues of blue and black

on the screen of the knees

with more than occasional stripes

of red in scrapes and rashes

This is not news where news

does not exist on a daily basis

except where people

filter through doors

or on sidewalks

to get their bills and ads

left by postal workers

who no longer drive

red white and blue mail trucks

wearing sweat-stained blue shirts

dark blue pants

blue on white agency designed eagles

modernized to reflect a new image

of mail speed

full of pizza cookie and chip products

We're far enough out

that our be-jeaned mail person

drives a Jeep

telling me my box number

when I mention my name

Even here numbers loom larger

than dignity

I can still buy a newspaper

but I don't

because Facebook and Google

bring the news and opinion

I need the most

where retirement doesn't need any

and I can print coupons

without clipping with scissors

Good-bye great newspaper writers

good-bye fourth estate and democracy

good-bye sweaty postal worker

I know you pray for electronic pulses

from the next nuclear something

that stops all this nonsense

and we have to return

to the old black and white

where Miss Ella Olson

returned to Windom

to visit her parents for tea

and stay the night

sleeping soundly in a bed

old familiar and covered

in Mrs. Olson's handmade quilts

so colorful as if to blind the dead

Barry G. Wick

In Hiding: the depths

If I say I am deep. I am not.

If I say I am shallow. I am not.

If I say I am living on the surface.

You must ask: “What surface?”

The grain of a plank of wood

is as deep as you need it to be

the closer you are to it.

Here is Ezra Pound's death mask

with such a peaceful look;

a depth of peace he did not have

during his life of pain and poetry.

It is not his face.

It is a positive of the plaster

with which they covered the skin

that was his face that was the poet.

Soon all poets will be created

in three dimensions carved

for the world to see

in 10,000 years, if poetry lasts.

Even the poetry will not fill the gaps

of what is not seen

just as wood grain

is a grand canyon in its own scale.

Barry G. Wick

The First Mirror of the Day

Rising to the day with sloth

a mirror near the bed

catches the first images

Sometimes a body is ready

to believe in what's seen

through the changeable eyes

These visions are transport

to the days of agelessness

though large wrinkles differ

Bright sun shines through white curtains

a revelation of old fires

in an aged deep soul

Barry G. Wick

Start Writing A Journal says the Great Thompson

Am I suppose to make money?

Getting fat in my old age

living off the writing of my youth

from books that are supposed

to mean something important

touted in college and workshops

In his grave

Jackson Pollock is getting fat

from his drips and drizzles

that are still beyond

what the boys understand

in South Dakota

Maybe tomorrow I will write something

that will become resilient

just enough that I shall be quoted

fawned upon by the poet world

flashes of green everywhere

the gold glitterati jamming

my hands with wrapped stacks

of fifties and hundreds

of which I want nothing

though gracious I shall be

if only to wonder

if this was the reason

I started writing in the first place

Words set on paper were

ordered by The Great Thompson

a high school teacher

have been shredded out of fear

that my real youth will be

pawed upon by librarians

tickled by researchers

for the one lump of diamond language

that made my Rolls Royce lifestyle

part the streets

much as Heston stood

waiting for the special effects people

to make the Red Sea awe the audience

Awe I said granting grace to a special moment

awe I said perfecting the visual ques

from which I have established

the reasonable respect

that only a Russian sized yacht will do

dragging bags of euros behind my walker

silver with gold highlights

acanthus leaves grace its columns

steadying my trudge along the decks

oh yes Sir with love

I shall pounce upon the magnificent language

is if to capture the Spanish vaults

of Inca gold with every letter

separated by heraldic commas

only dreamed of by Oxford dons

who shall call for Henri Cartier-Bresson

to gild me with his Leica

so that The Saints

will question their gold leaf book

I am later entombed in Pere Lachaise

in a space bulldozed by naked men

with their enormous penises

to lay me beside Great Oscar in his sleep

Little did they all know

I was happiest with barely enough

to get to next month

in the golden sun of Iowa

in my finest flannel loincloth

blazing white in kitchen light

set-off neatly by an orange couture t-shirt

dripping urine back and forth

through my trailer

golden poems shaping each drop

damn I need to go now

Barry G. Wick

So Early

Too many cups of tea

in the afternoon

just to taste something

other than plain water

to wet this dry gargle

Tired is sneaking

around my corners

lapping at my beaches

I can be gritty when

I'm not wearing shoes

Offenbach dance music

water sprites of the Rhine

through the glass wires

of the new age

with no water sprites

Sand has brought me music

to the edge of my beach

where a plane of water

stretches before me

mirrors drip with music

Barry G. Wick

Broken Sunlight

Hours upon hours

I scan the world

through page after page

from a bundle of pipes

with leaky connections

I seek photos to thrill

or to inspire me

as I pretend I am Subhramanya

the second son of Shiva

I have to be someone

Here, I am in a park

full of broken

unrealized

or soon to be achieved

dreams

thumbing through page

after page of photos

as if I once

posed for a snake

near a soldier's grave

and want to find the negative

in a dead forest

Suddenly I know why

I am alone at this age

I was always curious

and with somebody else

in my life

I get confused about myself

a marble statue dreaming

of paper arms and legs

and about them always them

Age creates its own prism

from which some see

more than one color

for me

it's needy red

shifty red

tearful red

a genuine color

whose variations escape

the only light I see

Does Daddy Shiva approve?

Barry G. Wick