Fall Haiku 3—The Vampire

Sun begins its rise

Night feeding benefits end

Homeland soil calls

Barry G. Wick

Fall Haiku 2

Fall Haiku

A hinge is fueled
as the wind rockets a door
the slam of fall launched 


Barry G. Wick

Failures

Flying across galaxies and time
on waves of gravity
other civilizations
have likely discovered us

They research everything
this planet has given us
plus the depth of mistakes
we make every day

Mostly it's our inability
to mind our own business
while cooperating
that must have them baffled

They can see how everything
is related here because
of the biological signatures
each species has inside of them

They're not likely to announce
their discoveries to the planet
because they're just waiting
for the failure about to come

For them a second
is fifty thousand years for us
that flies by to reveal
our inherent flaws

Over the rivers through the woods
our grandmothers knew the truth
stay home make a pie
give to those less fortunate

So our gifts to those
less fortunate from distance worlds
will be a planet free of humans
deceased from war and greed


Barry G. Wick

The Quest Room

(for my observant and intelligent friend, Corwin Watts)

I am here in my Quest Room

You read that correctly

It's not my guest room

It is here where The Black Hills

once surrounded me

where I now keep them deep inside

Here are the fallen sandstone boulders

of my youth near my parent's home

The house still there

but it's no longer home

just like so many houses there

were home and are not now

the warmth I once felt

Here are the Ponderosa Pines

I once sat next to

to peel bits of bark

Sometimes an ant or other bug

would crawl through the grooves

between the segments

There are the pasque flowers

in the spring

don't call them crocus

because that's not what they are

but I remember pale blue

handfuls of them

taken home to Mother

as I rounded the rock

on Hangman's Hill descending

to the small field

on the side where our home

looked west to the rain

crossing the layers

of hills to the south

or the setting of the winter sun

that warmed the basement cement

where I could sit dreaming

of where I might go

or what I might do

It's the home where I managed

to slay the dragons of music

on the peaks of a piano

tossing my fingerings

into the volcanoes of disapproval

I bike down the gravel road

past the dozer cuts that give

this Dinosaur Hill something

about which to complain

That very road almost killed me

as I gassed my father's car

more than the ice would tolerate

to spin a one-eighty

rear wheels just six inches

from locking themselves

over the edge and rolling me

to a severe injury or worse

The schools teachers and students

come into my Quest Room

challenging me to change

a painful past that many

would also experience

with no one to talk to

People in South Dakota

never talked about being queer

especially in a house filled

with conservative politicians

at my parent's summer parties

Here a governor

there a mayor

This is my mother's friend

married to a successful dentist

This is my father's friend

the superintendent of schools

They know everybody

but the Indians who walked up

the road with their children

in the cold of winter

without coats

only to get a five dollar bill

Here

I want to say now

take my coat

Here's one from my mother

a mink

Dad has several

and blankets

take all these blankets

Wrap your children in them

wrap your children in them

wrap your children in them

a five dollar bill is not very warm

when he could have taken them

to a motel

given them clothes

bought them food

called someone anyone

leaving me with the guilt

only a child can feel

staring out the windows

standing on green wool carpet

Invite them in

Don't turn them away with money

They turn and walk away

in my Quest Room

Here's a dragon I can't slay

Here's a dragon that slays me

And with that the bubble bursts

on the Quest Room

I flounder in what's left

of that liquid memory

looking across the room

at what created this

in large letters

large enough to read

large enough to stab

any dream

from over fifty years ago

Many quests and dragons slain

only some of them

still breathe fire and smoke

fire and smoke

and where there's fire

sometimes there isn't warmth

Barry G. Wick

Haydn Between the Leaves

Outside my window

from which I look

every day

a crabapple tree

in the middle of summer

now stripped of fruit

except one or two

here and there

because a squirrel

will jump the branches

causing leaves to fan the air

or send a bird or two flying

I sit back on the sofa

to watch this tree

in sun wind or rain

Its trunk leans

a bit to the north

much as I lean

over the walker

that supports me

The squirrels race

around the trunk

on a freshly mowed lawn

jumping onto it

when cats are around

Some have even sat

at the foot of the trunk

hoping a squirrel

will make a mistake

yet they never do

Who waits for me

to make a mistake

Who would even

notice if I did

and what mistake

might it be

dumping the grounds

into the hopper

without a liner

not starting the dryer

when I need something

to wear that week

Everything simplifies

Messages become the same

year after year

Dust falls on furniture

Garbage needs to go out

It rains or snows

or winds blow

just enough

to knock the rest

of the crab-apples

to the ground

The window gets washed

by the morning rain

Birds leave the grass

in a furious flap

What would Haydn

compose today

to accompany

all this activity

that entertains

an old man who sits

after breakfast

sipping his cooled coffee

Barry G. Wick

Haiku Pie

I have disappeared

in an apple tree's blank stare

taste me if you dare

Barry G. Wick

Responsibility

Having remembered a fun time

with a person

in a dream still asleep

I phone him

and invite him to go out

He makes an excuse

then I tell him

another time maybe

Awaking I know

he represents

everyone who has ever

rejected me

or

who I rejected

Sitting on the edge

of the bed

I begin to wander

through the memories

of my life

piecing together

a story of how

I've ended up alone

I find excuses

and people to blame

though later

I know it is

the person

on the edge of the bed

who sleeps in crumpled sheets

staring out a curtained window

at the new day

thinking he can change

the old day

when his unkindnesses

rejected others 
who wanted to be loved

I have arrived here

the result of shaming

fear of discovery

rejection by others

and my rejection of them

There's no chance

that I will find real love

in this life now

locked into a solace

and silence

in a home selected

to reject everything

that came before it

people places and things

who passed through the life

of the one I rejected the most

myself

Barry G. Wick

Two Eggs and Failure

From the refrigerator

to the gap between

the stove and the counter

just next to the perking pot

two eggs rest

warming themselves

from their sleep

next to the milk

and oranges

Instead of noisy clucking

from generations of their future

so nastily interrupted

by corporate farming

pacing between farm buildings

munching on grass and bugs

I have chosen these eggs

on this very morning

to be a runny part

of a heart-clogging breakfast

on the top of Walmart wheat bread

two slices from an 88 cent loaf

the eggs 54 cents for 36

during Walmart's welcome

of the Aldi store just over the hill

This breakfast has been

the product of business competition

desired by a retired something-or-other

who lives on payments

from a government social program

The eggs failed to produce

generations of chickens

The wheat failed produce

generations of tall wheat grass

Walmart failed to keep competition

away from this neighborhood

Aldi had failed to make a greater

new business opening

Mozart, whose piano concerto No. 15

accompanies this writing

failed to know of his fame

dying in poverty

and failure to live into old age

This writer failed to be published

and you dear reader

failed to find a great poet

to inspire some wondrous moment

during which you live

wasting away your time

on the musings of a simpleton

who was inspired

by two eggs and failure

Barry G. Wick

A Minor Epos: The Life of One: Our Hero or Heroine

There will come a time,

a time of which

one has never been told

and would not understand

if one had been told.

One has been had.

The truth will hit one.

Complete descriptions

featuring fantastic adjectives

are inserted here.

Running around the world

will cease.

The thought will occur to one:

“What an idiot I was

for running around the world

like an idiot.”

The world will shrink

to the size

of whatever distance it is

to where one buys food

to where one gets medicines

to where the hospital is

possibly to where some family

or friends

live

or include one in their family

And one will not mind

this diminution of localities

this shrinking of the wool

over one's eyes

One starts to see the little things

like unvacuumed carpet

bits of string dust crumbs of food

tiny shreds of paper

that escaped the dump

into a larger waste sack

or bag

depending upon which

part of the nation

your language describes

floppy open-ended plastic or paper

containers into which

are dumped life's flotsam and jetsam

before it is released

to the great dinosaurs

that consume these bags

on one's special day

a day one hopes will not be forgotten

since such containers

full of crud sweepings and empty containers

either fall upon the curb

or sit in the garage or hallway

until the following week

when one can again forget

to take these now gently expanding

gas bubbles of garbage

out

oh yes

one forgets even the simplest words

only to spend useless time

coming up with a definition

one enters into the internet search engine

in order to find the correct

combination of letters of the alphabet

that match the gap in one's head

One has much to which

one looks forward

as the solar orb sweeps

ever more rapidly

across the raceway of sky

ever more rapidly

please stop

ever more rapidly

why won't you stop

ever more rapidly

and then there are the nights

that shake and roll

beneath the festering sheets

that whip every little patch of skin

with wakeful pleasures

designed to punish the mind

with the importance of unlocked doors

burning coffee

greasy ovens full of black things

old peas in teeth-ripped plastic

and oh yeah

the question of the middle of the night

is this garbage day

and why didn't this one

take it to the curb

when once again it's time

to stagger through a darkened room

bumping the walker

into everything one tried to remember

is in-between one and a toilet seat

up or down

which doesn't matter quite soon

as the moon moves faster

please stop

as the moon speeds faster

stop stop stop

as the moon shreds

its sol-lit lumbering

with its unseen nighttime walker

through its black bedroom

of night

bright and awake

as one is

waiting for another day

for breakfast

for lunch

for dinner

for the same Beethoven this

heard for the painful, unnumbered time

of one's life

when one begs the radio personality

to bring out something

one has not heard

Oh yes

even the Ode to Joy

can be an Ode to ad nauseam

Ode be damned

Ode be gone

and one slides into sleep

a long tortuous sleep

full of discomfiture

as a blanket brands one's cheek

when one realized

one has been part of the herd

waiting for one's balls to be cut

(not the case for the heroine

of this epos)

waiting for the smell of burning hair

on an open prairie

the dreams of a corpse

lying in the oven

hair on fire

feeling owned by everything

and everyone

that preceded this

baptism in flaming methane

And the priest asks:

“What name do you give this corpse?”

Just one. Just one.

Barry G. Wick