Reading Another Writer's Poem

The words are a jungle to me
To talk to me in my time
leaves and vines must be
hacked away to get to
the writer's hooch
many stanzas from here

There is a thick bark
of experience surrounding
dripping green emotions
Sunlit images rattle around
inside my head
monkeys in the trees

Suddenly the writer appears
ahead on a well-used path
in a golden loincloth
Visible tan lines show
what the sun sees
I am lost in the depth of them

Here I jump from the page
into the clutter of simplicity
Beethoven's page turner
licks fingers for an empty page
I no longer hear the howlers
only Ludwig's memory

I need to read silently
without background radio
This distraction cost me
the possibility of the writer
seeing my arousal then dress me
in his own mystical garment


Barry G. Wick
March 2018