Thoughts

I keep thinking
that someone I'd like to see
will knock on my door
or that someone
I've recently met
will call me on the phone
It doesn't happen
I now know what
old people
have always lived through
the lonely years
after a partner dies
or whatever life dishes out
to anybody
So I will talk with no one
We shall have a fine talk
about whatever
Whatever is a big topic
these days
I hear people dismiss
each other
with that word
Maybe that's what I feel
some days
Dismissed
and then I think
of the friends
and readers I do have
then
Whatever
goes far down the list
of topics
I become grateful
for the conservation
for the little time I do have
with friends and family
then I don't feel
dissed
missed or otherwise


Barry G. Wick
May 2018

All The Beautiful

All the Beautiful

to ya Buddy

whatever year this is

Symphonies tapestries clothing

sculptures and laced covered buildings

gold-leafed alters

with marble tombs of the famous

paintings of fawns and faeries

landscapes of flowers

ships with bare chested ladies

leading their sailors to discovery

and Shakespeare's drifting and lifting

Words weren't created

by people who stared

into glowing screens

of television

computers

or cell phones

Beethoven never wore

earbuds blowing out

his eardrums

no sirree

Today I listened

to Schubert's 1^st Symphony

he wrote when he was fifteen

I'll post this for you

so you can read this

on a glowing screen

because I doubt that

it'd have any meaning

for you if I didn't

Then your mind

will throw it away

like so much plastic

to end up in an ocean

of ones and zeros

only to be eliminated

by an electric pulse

or wayward solar flare

that switches off

everything we think great

so we can go back to

creating beauty for the world

for awhile

that lasts as long

as the pyramids

or The Parthenon

or a diadem of gold

that graced the head

of a Queen

or Miss Destiny in drag

and her new hustler boyfriend

Zack with all the muscles

who won't be remembered

except by the long-dead guys

he did the nasty with

for a quick thrill

five minutes after

he left the sex stall

of some future Pompeii

destroyed by something

they'll dig out in twenty thousand

and nineteen

and nineteen

and nineteen

when the screens

get reinvented

the books will fall apart

and

Michelangelo Squirtboy

can't get

The Holy Holy Miss Molly

to give him the money

for the ceiling he painted

in the

Crutch of Arnold the Divine

the word church long forgotten

proving once again

what religion was

and always will be

a group of old drag queens

welshers and chiselers really

who won't pay

what art is worth

The stained-glass windows

briefly flicker

with an audible “Oh no!”

heard throughout the pews

Spirituality rekindled

at midnight en masse solipsism

God can't be seen

if the screens flicker

Siddhartha has his one mouthful

of rice with pine nuts and onion

with an infantile Cabernet

He takes off his necklace

of clay beads

spattered with reds and yellows

then hands them to me

I have nothing to give back

putting down my pen

to start crying

with my head bowed

looking at

the orange breechcloth

up around my fat stomach

I pull on the threads

coming undone on the front

that hangs down mid-thigh

I'm thinking of gratitude

and Squirtboy's plastic bottles

of hand-ground oil paints

squeezed at the ceiling

with extra drops

falling into his eyes

A couple of bitches sing

something amazing

from the Marriage of Mozart

It only lasted 16 seconds

All that remains

this far in the future

“That was that.”

says the announcer

“Hey, we found 27 seconds

of someone else singing something

on a broken hard drive,”

he says with amazement

Nothing but the greats

on this station

You plead with me

to let you go

I'm getting tedious

you think

“Preserve your memories,”

I say

“They're all that's left blank.”

I may have the quote wrong

but it doesn't matter

I tried

Remember this was free

did you think

my space in your head

was worth anything

Me neither

Switch it off

and read a book

printed on special paper

signed and numbered by the author

while it lasts

Barry G. Wick, May 2018

The True Path

This advice to babies

just out of the birth canal

start breathing

then ask the following questions

What the hell is this

Who the hell are you

Why am I screwing around here

How do I get through

this ridiculous thing called life

When will you

listen to me through this crying

(since all crying is an urge to listen

to the person crying)

The parent now says

just listen and learn

changes the dirty diaper

feeds the baby

helps them walk

gives them clothes

Generally after that

they're on their own

Then the parent

quits listening

quits asking questions

dirties a diaper

needs to be fed

stops walking

and cries from loneliness

until the urge to stop breathing

to go away from it all

overcomes everything

Barry G. Wick

American Murder

This is set to music
Maurice Ravel's Bolero
At the first of the music
he buys his hopped-up
semi-automatic rifle
made to hold magazines
containing up to 30 bullets
each neatly on top
of a brass shell
containing a fast-burning powder
ready to be lit by a primer
in the base
when the firing pin is released
by the trigger

He carries six magazines
in his vest
with one magazine in the gun
He has over two hundred bullets
ready to be fired
in the direction
of his sworn enemies
which are his family
his friends
his neighbors
doctors and nurses
school children
anybody

There is no thought in his action
unlike the saxophone player
and the trumpets
that slowly build their anger
at the composer
who is making them
repeat the melody
over and over
The violins are plenty miffed
They fire their notes
softer than the timpani
but still in Ravel's direction

Our hero steps
from the door of his rusty pickup
carrying his weapon
at the entrance of the mall
Some shoppers see this
and start screaming
as his finger plays it's melody
on the trigger
sounding strangely
like snare drums
with their raspy thump
The music swells
as people fall
with each report

First its an old lady
with her grandson
then the grandson
Behind him is a baby
in a stroller
with its parents
who fall screaming
He turns to see a store clerk
behind a counter
adjust the earrings
on a display
Down she goes
shot in the chest

He advances further
past stores filled
with the world's merchandise
ready to fill the pockets
of the poor and wealthy alike
with monetary bounty
People scatter before him
trying like ducks
to fly from a pond
spooked by the sound of a gun
It's open season on Americans

Soon the tally grows
to ten or fifteen
he's lost count
in his murderous fun
Now he's in the main hall
filled with shoppers
on this Saturday
Many look in the direction
of this explosive noise
wondering what it might be
Then seeing the flashes
with widening eyes
Their day on earth is ending
Their stories streak
across the mall floor
in red rivers

He is in a crescendo
building the inevitable
pile of victims
that has become a regular
fixture of freedom
There is no stopping
his switch from an empty
to a full magazine of death
All the musicians are falling
having spent themselves silly
in an orgiastic economy
falling one by one
fueled by oil
fueled by gas
fueled by explosions
fueled by printed paper
fueled by greed
fueled by need
fueled by the seeds of hate
fueled by the deeds of fate
fueled by the reaching
fueled by the teaching
fueled by the sinister
fueled by the minister
fueled by wild hunger
fueled by this violent thunder

The tally flashes on his screen
for less than a second
twenty-six dead and thirty-one
wounded and crying
A mall guard steps from a store
behind him
to put a bullet in his brain

America is saved
America the brave
America secured
America inured


Barry G. Wick

The Required Response

When is this going to change
my love
I've been waiting for you
in my dreams
in my waking hours
when I'm involved with minutia
I've asked others
to look for you
though neither of us
knows what you look like

I've tried over and over
to find you
and every time
others have put themselves
between us
Sometimes I've been too critical
perhaps pushing you away
or being cruel
That's a specialty of mine
I know that others
have not approved of your kind
or my kind
giving me a reason
to let you go
knowing full well
I'd have to look for you again

Looking through music and art
and books I've read
you're not there
I've scanned thousands of photos
hoping to see you
but the ones I see are out of reach
for a man my age
for a man my size
for a man of my qualities
for a man who is deperate
for a man
with whom to be
throughout my day

This message is being sent to you
in the only way I now know
My door is open
to greet you
who has
the required response


Barry G. Wick

Dear Mother 2018

Four and half years ago
I was with you
when you left
a hole in my heart
one of many you gave me
over the years

Your dreams for me
were never fully realized
In your zeal to produce
a pianist
you never saw
who you forgot to see
My college professors
found the stiffness
of my playing
was the resistance I created
to your forceful desires
Music should be a joy
discovered by a child
without tears and fear
Obedience and the need to please
were created
rather than the wild abandon
of a wondrous melody

The desire to create
was never connected
to me
It was on a chain
through your shoving
me to the piano
plus your insistence
I play for everyone
to pet your ego

It is my later years
I truly discover
the joy of music
Now I hear

Still I am grateful
to push aside all bitterness
to find my soul
can dance
despite my octopus knees

As Mother's Day
approaches in my 66th year
your better qualities
are remembered
so that I can miss you
so that I can forget
that you forgot who I was
always and
in your last ten years
when I cared for you
when I kept you
in your own home
to see
the changing seasons
along the creek
in the black mountain hills
of Dakota


Barry G. Wick

Poem of Night to Day

The night rain

sparkled on the screen

Tornado siren memory

from the early evening

kept me awake

until the peace of night

returned me to sleep

Morning brought

the popping of leaves

across the barrier of trees

that had allowed the moon

to procure my gaze

Summer has arrived early

with winter's abrupt end

“Tapiola” by Sibelius

with its storms and resolution

brings the lush green

of this new season

into a tepid focus

Barry G. Wick